Government protests Ukrainian authorities’ raid of ethnic Hungarian institutions

The Hungarian government has turned to the Ukrainian foreign ministry in protest against raids of ethnic Hungarian institutions in Transcarpathia (Kárpátalja), and has summoned the Ukrainian ambassador to the Hungarian foreign ministry, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Facebook on Monday evening.

Ukrainian security service commandos raided several Hungarian institutions in Transcarpathia as well as the home of the president of the Transcarpathian Hungarian Cultural Association, László Brenzovics, the association said in a statement earlier on Monday.

Szijjártó said that

the Hungarian government would “stand up for Transcarpathian Hungarians in every international forum”, adding that he would raise the issue at a meeting of his NATO counterparts on Tuesday.

Szijjártó said that “despite recent pledges and so-called efforts towards reconciliation”, the Ukrainian government’s policies continued to be “anti-Hungarian” and were aimed at intimidating the country’s Hungarian minority. He said it was “unacceptable” for a country aiming for NATO membership to “continuously intimidate and keep an ethnic minority of a NATO member and under pressure .

The raids came after a ruling by a court in Zaporizhia, in eastern Ukraine, in connection with charges of separatism, the association said, adding that it believed the procedure was based on fabricated political charges with the aim of hobbling the activities of Hungarian organisations and intimidating Hungarians of Transcarpathia and their leaders.

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Source: MTI