No Indictment for Occupation of Hungarian Military Cemetery in Romania

The prosecutor’s office in Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár) has closed the criminal proceedings initiated by the nationalist association Calea Neamului (National Road) regarding the military cemetery in Valea Uzului (Úzvölgye), where 150 wooden crosses were erected without permission last year. This was followed by an announcement by Mihai Tirnoveanu, the association’s leader, posted on Facebook.

Tirnoveanu recalled that following denunciations by the president of the Harghita County Council, the municipality of Sânmartin (Csíkszentmárton), and the Transylvanian Hungarian Association (EMSZ), several proceedings were launched against him, and the prosecutor’s office merged these files. The charges included public incitement, incitement to hatred, violence and discrimination, incitement to vandalism, incitement to trespass, desecration of graves, and carrying out works in the cemetery without a building permit.

The prosecution found that the first count of the indictment was not established.

Regarding the erection of the 150 wooden memorial crosses, it was noted that although there is a possibility that it was done without a permit, this act does not fall under the scope of criminal law, as “the cemetery does not have the status of a monument.”

Csaba Borboly, president of the Harghita County Municipality, said the decision would be appealed. “We do not consider the justification acceptable. We will continue in the court of Chisinau,” he said.

Sándor Birtalan, the mayor of Sânmartin, who also denounced the leader of the Romanian association last year, made a similar statement. He said that they had received information from the prosecutor’s office that the crimes they had reported had not taken place. “We have an agreement with the Harghita County Council: lawyers are working on appealing the prosecutor’s finding in court,” the head of the municipality added, referring to the next steps.

The wooden crosses were erected in July last year by supporters of the Calea Neamului association at the military cemetery in Valea Uzului, after the Romanian judiciary ruled their first occupation of the site illegal and ordered the removal of the symbols and structures.

On 29 June 2023, the concrete crosses, monument, and flagpole of the Romanian plot, which was arbitrarily built in 2019, were removed from the graveyard of the depopulated Valea Uzului settlement, which belongs administratively to the municipality of Sânmartin, after a final court ruling ordered the mayor’s office of Dormanesti (Dormánfalva) in the neighboring county of Bacău.

In March 2019, the Moldavian municipality declared the military cemetery in Valea Uzului, which was previously maintained by the Szekler municipality of Sânmartin and considered a Hungarian military cemetery by the Hungarian community, to be its public property.

On June 6, 2019, thousands of Romanians forced their way into the cemetery to attend the Romanian Orthodox consecration of the Romanian plot and monument, after Szeklers tried to prevent this with a live dance.

A week after the violence, the Romanian authorities clarified that the 149 Romanian soldiers whose names were read out as part of the ceremonies that were regularly repeated after the violent occupation of the cemetery were not buried in the cemetery in Valea Uzului.

Related articleRomanian Gendarmerie Passes the Buck on Fining for Desecration of Military Cemetery

The Romanian gendarmerie did not fine the nationalists desecrating yet again the military cemetery in Úzvölgye on 8 July.Continue reading

Via MTI; Featured Image: Facebook / Kelemen Hunor

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