10.11.2008 Human Rights Violations in Slovakia

Shocking video images show that the Slovakian police attacked ethnic Hungarian supporters on November the first during a football match between Slovan from Bratislava (Pozsony) and DAC from Dunajska Streda (Dunaszerdahely).

 

27-4-2009 Communiqué by László Tökés.

Stop the artificial changes in the ethnic proportions in Transylvania The Hungarian community of Transylvania – which has been struggling for autonomy with peaceful and democratic means – could also become an aggrieved party of the ensuing Romanian-Moldovan conflict.

17-12-2008 Petion handed over to the employees of the Slovakian Embassy during the protest of December the 17 th 2008.

12-7-2009 Language Law in Slovakia

The Slovakian parliament voted for a language law, which makes the use of the Hungarian, but also the English language punishable by amounts of up to € 5000.  The Language law originally originates from 1995 and was used as an instrument to prosecute the Hungarian language community in South Slovakia. The unclear decision mechanisms create room for subjective sentencing and fines.

1-12-2009  Support the foundation.

In December the committee sent a mailing to potential donators. You can make an online donation by using your credit card by clicking here.

3-12-2009 Bilingualism in Slovenia.

These online examples show you, that in Slovenia language rights of the autonomous population are respected.  The question that rises is why is the Slovakian and Romanian language practice are so different.  Click here to read the Article.

4-12-2009 Dutch cities prefer silence above answering .

According to the new Slovakian language law, any official contact that is not conducted in the Slovakian language is illegal and is subject to legal sentencing up to 5000 €. According to this language law, it is forbidden for a Post employee to use the English words “Yes” or “No”. This language law makes any contact between the Slovakian partner cities of Zoetermeer, Epe, Ablasserdam, Schouwen- Duiveland, Dinkelland and Gennep illegal. Click here to read this letter. (Dutch)

4-12-2009 Letter to mister Sorin Apostu, mayor of Kolozsvár (Cluj –Napoca )

On 5-11-2009 the Committee sent a letter to Mr. Sorin Apostu, in which we kindly requested the mayor to remove discriminative public signs. The letter has been unanswered. Click here to read this letter.

4-12-2009 Campaign against State racism in the European Union.

The European Committee Human Rights Hungarians  Central Europe launched a campaign against state racism in the European Union. The European civilization can only exist on the basis of human rights. Click here for more information.

18-12-2009 Kia violates the Slovakian language law, yet remains unpunished.

 

Kia has a production unit in Žilina Slovakia. This is the city where Mr. Jan Slota used to be the mayor from 1990 till 2006. It appears like KIA motora has an exceptional position in Slovakia. Although it is constantly violating Slovakian language law, these acts remains unpunished. Click here to read the letter we sent to the CEO Mr. In-Kyu Bae of Kia motors in Zilina.

17-01-2009 Romania. Legislation in favour of linguistic autonomous minorities is simply ignored.

In Romania linguistic autonomous minorities, have certain rights on paper. The Romanian law makes it obligatory to use the Hungarian Language in public administration on signs and in writing if the percentage of a autonomous language minority  is above 20 % percent in a community ( according to law 215 of 2001). In Tordaszentlaszló (Romanian Savadisla) about 50 % of the population is of Hungarian tongue, nevertheless, the rights of the Hungarian speaking community are simply ignored. We sent a letter to the police station asking them to comply with the law. 

24-01-2010 Language rights in Friesland, a European example for Romania and Slovakia.

In the Netherlands you can also find a linguistic autonomous minority, just like in Slovakia and Romania. In the Netherlands the use of the Frisian language is not limited or constrained by law. The Frisian language is the second language of the Netherlands and can be used in courts, official documents and notary acts, amongst others. The following article gives you an impression of the language situation in the Netherlands.   (Hungarian and Dutch only)

23-01-2009  Follow-up on Dutch communities that have friendships with slovakian cities.

After making several phonecalls and sending follow-up letters we received the following information from the earlier mentioned Dutch communities. Epe community  doesn’t have a partnership anymore with the Slovakia community rajec since oktober 2009. From Ablasserdam community we received the following information through Mr Veerman, who is responsible for the friendship contact: “ All contacts in Sered, whether on the street or in shops is taking place in the English language. We could not notice that there is a language law. Contact from human to human goes through the language of the heart, the vocal expression is almost always in English” Schouwen Duiveland community does not have a exchange program with Namestovo anymore, these are taken over by the  Pontes Pieter Zeeman college from  Zierikzee. Miss  Groenen, who is spokeswomen for the community of Gennep told us the following :  “Gennep community does not see any reasons, for which the contact with the Slovakian friendship city Gelnica should be terminated, at this very moment. We are still awaiting the response of Zoetermeer  (Nitra) en Dinkkeland (Liptovsky Mikulas). The responsible contact persons of those two communities already have received a follow-up letter.   Dutch communities have the legal obligation to promote the international law order according to Article  90 of the Dutch constitution. Article 12 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms literary states the following: The enjoyment of any right set forth by law shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.

25-01-2010 The foundation thanks all of is contributors. If you wish to make an online donation you can do so by clicking the donation button on the right .

01-03-2010 Kia Motors remains Silent in all languages.

The management of Kia motors Slovakia, left our letter of December 2009 unanswered. This is odd, since we asked the following crystal clear and simple question:  “Do you agree that you should be able to speak, write and communicate in English or Korean freely, without the fear of being subject to any kind of legal sanctioning from the Slovakian government”? We sent a letter to the Dutch branch of KIA, with the request for an answer.  

04-03-2010 Central Europe is still haunted by its communist past.

The wall of Berlin fell in 1989 and consequently the iron curtain ceased to exist. The central plan economy of the former Soviet member states transformed to a free economy. But what happened really? We know that the essence of the communist dictatorships was a lack of freedom.  This was caused by the fact that the freedom was taken away through a full observation by the secret police. Files, which could even fill a bookcase, were made about the most insignificant persons. Till today only the Czech Republic made a clean start, by making all files of the secret police public. In Hungary and Romania this is still not the case. There are still secrets files, in which information can be found, that can be used to blackmail influential persons. László Tökés- member of the European Parliament- made a list public in which the names of the secret agents can be found that spied him. This list can be downloaded here.

08-03-2010 The five Boys of Temerin. The Republic of Serbia is nowadays a candidate member of the European Union. In first  instance Serbia was not allowed to become a member of the European Union, due to the massive human rights violations that occurred.  The case of the five of Temerin clearly shows that Serbian courts make judgments with a very strong ethnical bias. The  judgment of the five of Temerin was not a factual judgment, but was a warning directed to the ethnic Hungarian community in Serbia. In Serbia ethnic violence has occurred against Hungarians. Here you read more.

10-03-2010 Illegal Annexation of Moldavia makes ethnic tensions growingThe political borders of Europe have been formed as a result of the First and Second World War. The last border change has been made in 1947 at the Peace Treaty of Paris. This is a treaty that has been initiated and signed by the allied forces. In the nineties the language rights of autonomous minorities have been confirmed through bilateral and European treaties. To summarize the two principles of Europe: borders and languages cannot be changed unilaterally. Romania has a very remarkable interpretation of both principles. By giving Moldavians a Romanian citizenship it breaches the Paris Peace Treaty. The language rights of Hungarians are not fully respected as well.  Before joining the European Union, Romania showed more respect for these European treaties. Here you can read more.

10-3-2010 Slovakian Language Law threatens Dutch language during a school trip.

The students of the Pontes Pieter Zeeman school go in March visit for an exchange trip to the Slovakian city of Namestovo. According to the Slovakian language law, speaking of English or even Dutch is illegal during this trip. This law is feared by the oppressed Hungarian speaking autonomous population of Slovakia, some of them are even afraid to speak Hungarian in public. Nevertheless it is highly unlikable that the Slovakian authorities will prosecute the Dutch students. However it is of course a question, whether the students of the Pontes High school, will still feel comfortable about a law, which is opposite to the principles of human rights and human dignity. We have sent this letter to the school. (Dutch Only)

11-03-2010 European Union.  Keep your promises  The European community is a political and an economical community, which can only survive by respecting the treaties and the principles on which it is based. The word promise has certainly a different meaning in Slovakia, which simply ignores the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages and the European Treaty for Human Rights. Greece has supplied false information to Brussels, just as Hungary has done. In fact Greece has breached the treaty of Maastricht. Here you can read the article MSZP causes Greek tragedy, which is written by Zsolt Szabó  and László Marácz. (Dutch Only) The purpose of this article is to urge for a rule of law within the European Union.

5-6-2010 LANGUAGE RIGHTS IN CENTRAL EUROPE. The foundation launched it’s language rights portal. The purpose of this portal is to notify the Hungarian speaking citizens in Slovakia and Romania, that they are entitled to use their mother language. Just like the Welsh can do in England, or the German speaking population of South Tirol is entitled to. These rights are guaranteed in European bilateral and national treaties and laws. For more information please visit: http://www.language-rights.eu/

8-JUNE 2010 THE FOUNDATION VIOLATED SLOVAKIA’S LANGUAGE LAW The treasurer of the foundation has placed a poster on a public location in Samorin (Somorja) in South Slovakia, The poster contains the following text, „HUNGARIANS ARE BORN AS FREE PEOPLE , NOT AS SLAVES”. According to the Slovakian language law the use of the English language is strictly forbidden in public. Members of the autonomous Hungarians speaking inhabitants of Slovakia, have already been prosecuted by the Slovakian language police for the public  use of an other language as Slovakian. You can read more about the language law under the following link.  http://www.hungarian-human-rights.eu/taalterreur/

12-6-2010 THE  SLOVAKIAN LANGUAGE POLICE PROSECUTES AMATEUR  THEATRE PLAYERS.  The Slovakian language police sent a summon, to amateur  theatre players, who violated the Slovakian language law. According to the Slovakian language law, any kind of cultural meetings in the Hungarian language  are forbidden. The language law also prohibits the use of spoken English in public. English language inscriptions are also forbidden in public.  It is very remarkable that the Slovakian language police tolerates pop concerts in the English language, however it does not tolerate similar events if they happen in the Hungarian language.  On  the basis of these procedural inequalities regarding the Language law.  Slovakia is the only country in  the European union, that  openly discriminates on the sole basis  of ethnicity.

 1-7-2010 SLOVAKIA, THE TROJAN HORSE IN THE EUROPEAN  UNION In 1996 the Dutch politicians Frits Bolkestein en Geert Wilders concluded that a lack of respect for the rights of ethnic minorities will impede the integration of Central Europe into the European Union. In 1996 they pointed out that “new member states must comply with the acquis communautaire that has been formulated by the EU in 1993 in Kopenhagen. Ather the ethnic trouble in former Yugoslavia it is of utmost importance to ensure that ethnic stability is present in the region. Europe should be aware not to bring the Trojan horse into the European union.” You can  read more in the following article. Slovakia the Trojan horse in  the European union.

1-7-2010 REPORT OF LANGUAGE LAW VIOLATION TO THE SLOVAKIAN LANGUAGE POLICE     According to the Slovakian language law, it is prohibited to use  English or Hungarian  in public.  At present day this law is still in effect.) Therefore we have asked the Slovakian language police to prosecute all documented perpetrators of the Slovakian language law ( 1-Basisschool Kirreweie, 2- the foundation ECHRHCE, 3-Pontes Pieter Zeeman School, 4-Kia Motors, 5-Gemeente Ablasserdam en 6-Zoetermeer) The Slovakian language police already prosecuted a Hungarian language  amateur theatre player group.

12-8-2010 LANGUAGE RIGHTS IN ROMANIA, A GAP BETWEEN LAW AND PRACTICE Romania has national, bilateral, European and International obligations regarding the language rights of its own Hungarian speaking inhabitants, amongst others.  On paper everything looks  good, however the practice unfortunately shows that the rights of the native Hungarians Speaking  are neglected or only symbolically respected. Attila Brassai and Lehel Kovács,  both university teachers and Gábor Landman, treasurer of the foundation,  discussed the possibilities to improve the language rights in Romania. The recording can be watched here (Hungarian Language )

1-8-2010 PORTRAIT OF THE FOUNDATION ON DUTCH PUBLIC TV

The “vlinderrevolutie ”– named after a  term found in meteorology -the butterfly effect-, shows engaged and motivated world citizens, who try to make the world a better place.   A portrait has been made of Gabor Landman, the treasurer of the foundation, whilst leaving to Slovakia and handing out flyers that list the 10 most basic language rights  that  Hungarians Speaking Slovaks have.  You can watch or download this  program by clicking here. (Dutch Language)