Stock photo from Pixabay
Hungary denounces Ukraine’s discriminatory language law
The language law that Ukraine’s parliament approved on Thursday is unacceptable, according to the Hungarian Foreign Minister.
Published: May 1, 2019, 9:59 am
The law which violates the rights of the Hungarian community in the neighbouring country reflects the ideals of outgoing President Petro Poroshenko who pursued an anti-Hungarian policy, Peter Szijjarto told public media on Thursday.
Voters in Ukraine elected a new president, Vladimir Zelensky, with a large majority, Szijjarto said, adding that it put an end to the Poroshenko era.
He expressed hope that the situation concerning the rights of the Hungarian community in Ukraine would soon be “clarified in a dialogue with the country’s new president on the basis of mutual respect and in pursuit of finding a solution to the issue”.
“We will do our utmost to restore ties between Ukraine and Hungary” after Zelensky enters office, Szijjarto said.
Hungarian FM Peter Szijjarto. Photo supplied
“Our aim is to have friendship return between Hungary and Ukraine and the outcome of this recent presidential election gives some hope for that,” the Foreign Minister said.
The law which makes the use of Ukrainian compulsory as an official language in several areas was passed with a large majority. Hungarian organisations in the Carpathian Basin protested against the legislation saying that it eliminated all of the minorities’ rights to the use of their own language.
In 2017, Ukraine passed a similar law that would have banned teaching in languages other than Ukrainian beyond the primary school level, but quickly ammended it after a major outcry. The law had angered the significant Hungarian, Romanian and Polish minorities as well as their governments.
Findings of a poll conducted jointly by the Levada Centre in Moscow and the Kiev Institute of Sociology earlier, showed more than 57 per cent of Ukrainians have a positive attitude towards Russia – sharply up from 30 per cent in 2015. And an even greater proportion said they were favourably disposed towards Russians.
Zelensky posted a diatribe over the weekend in response to Russian President Putin’s offer of Russian passports to Ukrainian citizens both inside and outside the areas of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian speakers.
Days after Zelenskiy defeated Poroshenko in a runoff election on April 21, the Ukrainian parliament passed a new language bill Poroshenko had backed.
It decreed the exclusive use of Ukrainian, not just by state officials but by all service personnel such as waiters and shop assistants, and requires that all media use Ukrainian as their primary language.
This move is a major shift in a country where top news media have always used Russian first. Officials and military personnel will now be fined for not speaking Ukrainian in official contexts.
Ukraine’s newly-elected leader however, will have to contend with more than one foreign state issuing its passports to Ukrainians as a result of his predecessor’s divisive language and citizenship policy.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has long demanded autonomy, dual citizenship and language freedom for the more than 150 000 Hungarians in the Ukrainian Transcarpathia, once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, at the time of the 2001 census – Ukraine has not held another census since.
When it became clear that President Petro Poroshenko was set on making the Ukrainian language dominant throughout the country, Hungary quietly started issuing passports to Hungarian-speaking Ukrainians, but Ukraine expelled a Hungarian consul for the practice.
Romania, which has issued at least half a million passports in neighbouring Moldova, may face hundreds of thousands of applications from Ukrainian citizens who speak Romanian or practically identical Moldovan. Applications for Romanian citizenship have increased since 2017, when the country scrapped consular fees for applicants.
Russians are Ukraine’s biggest ethnic minority and Russian remains the biggest obstacle to the dominance of Ukrainian, because most people in Ukraine speak Russian, and many speak it better than the country’s now-only official language.
The reason for this is that Russia will always be a much bigger market for books, popular music and other cultural products, while Russian social networks such as Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki have remained popular in Ukraine even though they were banned under Poroshenko.
Ukrainians have used virtual private networks to access Russian social media networks under the current ban.
All rights reserved. You have permission to quote freely from the articles provided that the source (www.freewestmedia.com) is given. Photos may not be used without our consent.
Consider donating to support our work
Help us to produce more articles like this. FreeWestMedia is depending on donations from our readers to keep going. With your help, we expose the mainstream fake news agenda.
Keep your language polite. Readers from many different countries visit and contribute to Free West Media and we must therefore obey the rules in, for example, Germany. Illegal content will be deleted.
If you have been approved to post comments without preview from FWM, you are responsible for violations of any law. This means that FWM may be forced to cooperate with authorities in a possible crime investigation.
If your comments are subject to preview by FWM, please be patient. We continually review comments but depending on the time of day it can take up to several hours before your comment is reviewed.
We reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive, contain slander or foul language, or are irrelevant to the discussion.
Europe
New App Helps Locate Sweden’s Historic Runestones
A new app called Swedish Runestones will help locate historical gems.
Swedish military wants to remilitarize the Åland Islands
The demilitarized autonomy has previously been known as 'the islands of peace.
NOAA Predicts Zero Sunspots for Almost the Whole 2030s
CLIMATEThe United States' government scientific organization, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), predicts zero sunspots from 2031 to 2040. This is an extreme situation that has not occurred in as long as humanity has been counting sunspots, and it leads us into uncharted territory in terms of our solar system. However, this prediction aligns with the warnings of the world-renowned solar researcher Valentina Zharkova for many years, who indicated in 2019 various signs of this catastrophic phenomenon, including the extreme hailstorms we have seen in Europe and the world this summer. The forecast and various observations this year give cause for very significant concern. In this unique analysis, Free West Media explains why.
European Nationalist Parties Forge Cooperation Ahead of EU Elections
EUROPEAN ELECTIONSOn Saturday, August 26, representatives of six European nationalist parties gathered in Budapest. The meeting was initiated by the Hungarian party Mi Hazánk and took place in the national parliament. Representatives of the parties signed a joint declaration that not only reaffirms the parties' friendship but also their unity on a range of complex political issues. A surprisingly clear and radical manifesto was established. The hope is that this cooperation will lead to success in the EU elections and eventually result in the formation of a group in the European Parliament. For Swedish nationalism, this meeting marks a success as Sweden, for the first time, has a party represented in a leading nationalist cooperation in Europe. Free West Media was present at this historic event.
Turkey Believes Sweden Hasn’t Done Enough
Sweden will have to wait a bit longer for NATO membership, according to Turkey's Justice Minister Jilmaz Tunc. First, Sweden must extradite the "terrorists" Turkey wants and stop the desecration of the Quran.
Swedish Weapon Takes Down Russia’s Best Attack Helicopter
The Russian attack helicopter Ka-52 is considered one of the world's best and has struck fear in Ukraine, where it has hunted down tanks and other armored vehicles, often beyond the range of many light anti-aircraft systems. However, it has met its match in the Swedish air defense missile system RBS 70, which has quickly led to significant losses for the Russian helicopter forces.
The Sun Drives Earth’s Climate, Not Carbon Dioxide
Top Researchers Push Back Against Climate Lies."The correlation is as clear as day," explained the Israeli astrophysicist Nir Shaviv, who was hailed by the establishment, before his interview with Forbes was hastily deleted. What he says contradicts the climate narrative, which points to humans as responsible for Earth's climate. Shaviv firmly asserts that it is the sun that controls the climate, something that can be scientifically proven in many ways. Contrary to the popular belief, the sun's influence on Earth has, in recent years, caused unusually cold and rainy weather, a trend that solar researchers warn will worsen significantly in the coming decades. The sun has exhibited an unusually low activity since 2016, during Solar Cycle 24, which was the weakest in a century.
Strong Confidence in German AfD
Alternative for Germany (AfD) held a party conference on July 29-30 to select candidates for the upcoming EU election next year. EU Parliament member Maximilian Krah, belonging to the party's more radical, ethnonationalist faction, was appointed as the top candidate. The party's two spokespersons delivered powerful speeches criticizing the EU's failed migration policy and trade sanctions that isolate Europe and Germany from the rest of the world. They argued that it's time for the EU to return a significant portion of its power to national parliaments. However, they have dropped the demand for Germany to exit the EU.
The Establishment Wants to Ban Germany’s Second Largest Party – for the Sake of Democracy
The rising popularity of AfD has raised strong concerns within the establishment. Despite lies and demonization in the media and isolation from the overall political establishment, the party continues to grow. Certain representatives of the party are accused of becoming increasingly "extreme," and in an unusual move, the influential weekly newspaper Der Spiegel demanded that AfD be "banned."
Dutch FvD break through the media blockade
What is happening in the Netherlands? It is often difficult to follow events in other countries, especially when distorted by system media. We give Forum for Democracy (FvD) the opportunity to speak out on the political situation in the Netherlands and the staunch resistance they face in trying to save the country.
No comments.
By submitting a comment you grant Free West Media a perpetual license to reproduce your words and name/web site in attribution. Inappropriate and irrelevant comments will be removed at an admin’s discretion. Your email is used for verification purposes only, it will never be shared.