Szijjártó: Ukraine wants to eliminate ethnic minorities
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Ukraine’s proposal tantamount to taking steps to eliminate ethnic minorities using European Union funds is “unacceptable”, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Geneva on Wednesday.
Szijjártó told the United Nations Human Rights Council that a recent Ukrainian proposal had floated the idea of ethnic minority families receiving ca. EUR 1,000 if their children are enrolled in Ukrainian-language schools rather than those offering education in their mother tongue. Hungary’s government follows the issue of ethnic minorities in Ukraine carefully, in view of the millions of Hungarians living there, the ministry cited Szijjártó as saying.
Szijjártó insisted that Ukraine had been in “continuous and systematic” violation of the rights of national minorities since 2014, by adopting laws that made minority language education impossible. School-leaving exams will also be unavailable in minority languages, as will admission exams and vocational training, he said. School principals and teachers in minority language schools are being fired, he said.
“Ukraine wants to eliminate ethnic minorities” ?! Is someone inferring ethnic cleasing?
We (Hungary) also have ethnic minorities, the highest numbers being Roma (3.2 p.c.), German (1.9 p.c.) and Croatian (0.3 p.c. – the equivalent of the ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine), and FM, pray tell us just how many schools do these ethnic minorities have here in Hungary?!
Let’s just rectify the situation right here at home, before we throw stones at other people’s glass houses.