With immediate effect, the Bákó County Education Inspectorate has replaced the principal of the Parjol village elementary school due to discrimination against the Csángo children of Pustina, the Bákó county news portal Ziaruldebacau.ro reported on Thursday, quoting the announcement of the education inspectorate.

According to the news of the portal, the schools of the villages belonging to the village of Parjol planned to celebrate the Romanian national holiday together in the WhatsApp group of the teachers, when the school director announced:

the people of Pusztina do not need to be invited to the December 1st holiday, because they are Hungarians and celebrate on March 15.

(The headmistress - presumably by mistake - wrote March 14.) Then she also added: "the cross of their mother!"

One of the teachers sent the screenshot of the teachers' chat to the school inspectorate, which immediately investigated the matter.

He found that the "mostly Hungarian students" were not invited to the celebration on the occasion of the national holiday, and the headmistress admitted that she had written the offensive message.

In a statement sent to the portal, the inspectorate announced:

"In view of the seriousness of the incident, taking into account that obviously discriminatory behavior is unacceptable, especially in the school environment, and especially on the part of an institution manager, the Board of Directors of the Bákó County Education Inspectorate dismissed the director of the Parjol village school from his position on November 29, 2022."

The school inspectorate also announced that it rejects any irresponsible expression that artificially creates tension in small communities where the spirit of mutual respect and understanding otherwise prevails. He also added:

"We are all Romanians and we must all respect the first of December, Romania's national holiday".

László Pogár: not a unique case, but at least an example was established

László Pogár, the president of the Association of Moldavian Csángómagyars (MCSMSZ), told MTI about the case that the problem is not necessarily that the children from Pusztina were not invited to the December 1st celebration, but the disrespectful way in which they were treated . He believed that the strong position of the school inspectorate condemning discrimination could be a warning sign for other schools as well.

According to the president of the association, although he cannot recall specific anti-Hungarian cases related to the first of December, similar cases from the past years, the fact is that in the region,

There are always frictions in Csangóföld, it is not uncommon for the Romanians to scold the Hungarians. According to him, this is just one case out of many that stands out because it was made public.

"I think they are like this almost on a daily basis," he stated. At the same time, he added that the situation has improved a lot since the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s in terms of Romanian-Hungarian conflicts in the region, but this is not a rarity even today.

Source: MTI / kronikaonline.ro

Front page photo: The celebration organized for the first of December was held without Hungarian children at the Persjoj school • Photo: Ziaruldebacau.ro