Protest held against Ukraine education law in Budapest

Some 100-150 people gathered in front of the Ukrainian embassy in Budapest on Friday evening to protest against Ukraine’s new education law and demonstrate in support of autonomy for the Transcarpathian region.

Addressing the demonstration, independent MEP Krisztina Morvai said all Hungarians had a right to live as Hungarians in their places of birth and that native ethnic communities had a right to autonomy.

“This should also have been said when the European Union signed the association agreement with Ukraine,”

she said.

National Legal Defense Service CEO Tamás Gaudi-Nagy, who organised the protest together with Morvai, said that

if Ukraine did not guarantee the roughly 200,000 Transcarpathian Hungarians their right to self-determination, it could not be an associate member of the EU.

Ukraine’s new rules on education banning post-primary-level education in minority languages were signed into law last month. The move triggered protest in several neighbouring countries.