The prefect of Maros county sued the mayor of Makfalva in Székelyföld, Imré Vass, for displaying the Székely flag in the public square, lawyer Előd Kincses told MTI on Tuesday.

Prefect Ciprian Dobre, the Marosvásárhely lawyer representing the defendant, sent his claim addressed to the Maros County Court to MTI, in which

the regional representative of the Romanian government asks the judges to oblige them to remove the blue-gold flag considered the flag of the "so-called Székelyland"

the mayor of the Maros county village.

Ciprian Dobre recalls: on September 13, he asked the mayor in a transcript to remove the symbol placed in the settlement's park, next to the statue of Baron Miklós Wesselényi, but Imre Vass replied that displaying the Székely flag was not against the law.

In the lawsuit, Dobre refers to the block Hungarian region as "Székelyföld" in lower case, and states that only the officially accepted symbols can be used,

as the flag and coat of arms of Romania, the coat of arms of the given administrative unit. He also writes that the Székely flag, the Székely anthem and the SIC region code referring to Székelyföld are related to the autonomy aspirations of the people living in the region, "territorial separatism on the basis of ethnicity", which, according to him, is unconstitutional.

Mayor Imre Vass, in his reply addressed to the administrative department of the Maros County Court, requests the rejection of the claim, pointing out that the display of a flag which

not of a particular state and issued by a group of citizens, not an administrative act.

He also points out that it is not clear from the lawsuit whether Dobre will be brought before the court as a mayor or as a private person, and underlines that there were no administrative documents about the display of the flag. He also draws attention to the fact that preventing the use of national symbols violates the Romanian Constitution and the Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities.

Incidentally, regarding the prefect's transcript sent in September regarding the Székely flag in Makfalva, Izsák Balázs, the president of the Székely National Council, announced that the organization is ready to provide all moral and political assistance to the mayor's office of Makfalva, and

20 similar Székely flags are displayed in different settlements of Székelyföld.

In the most recent Romanian census, 2,200 of the approximately 3,000 residents of the village of Makfalva in Maros county declared themselves Hungarian.

MTI

Cover image: Illustration / MTI Photo: Balázs Mohai