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US State Department Publishes Annual Report on Human Rights
In the report on Romania the Csangos are mentioned twice: on the subject of restricted religious freedom and language classes.
About religious freedom, the report says:
"A Roman Catholic Csango community, an ethnic group that speaks a Hungarian dialect, alleged the Roman Catholic Bishopric of Iasi continued to oppose holding religious services in Hungarian, despite a 2005 CNCD [National Council for Combating Discrimination] decision that denying religious services in the mother tongue is a restriction on religious freedom."
Furthermore, the report contains this years' facts on language education:
"In the Moldavia region where the Roman Catholic Csango minority resided, the community continued to operate government-funded Hungarian-language school groups; 988 students in 14 localities received Hungarian language classes during the 2007-08 academic year. However, 66 students did not receive Hungarian-language classes following an intimidation campaign waged by the school and local authorities that made the parents withdraw the applications for such classes."
The villages not mentioned by name where these incidents happened are Gajdár and Lujzakalagor. Since then, three teachers of the Association of Csango-Hungarians in Moldavia organize extracurricular activities instead.
In last year's country report on Romania it is mentioned that 7900 children did not receive Hungarian language classes. Although it is not written in the current report, the situation has not improved much. In Moldavia approx. 9000 children speak or at least understand Hungarian, but we can provide only 1400 of them in 19 villages with language classes. It would be necessary to expand our education program to 30 more places, as long as teaching Hungarian for native speakers is still possible in Moldavia.
14.03.2008
