Hungarians living in Ukraine are outraged by the opposition “language” bill

January 17, there was the meeting of the Presidium of the Democratic Union of Hungarians of Ukraine, which addressed issues of concern to the Hungarian community in Ukraine. In particular, they discussed the registration of the draft Law of Ukraine "On the functioning of the Ukrainian as the state language and rules for the use of other languages ​​in Ukraine."

As the participants emphasized, the law submitted to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by the deputies of Ukraine Yavorivsky V. ("Batkivshchyna" party), Matios M. (Vitali Klitschko’s "UDAR" party) and Farion I. ("Svoboda" party) without exaggeration, is "unique" in the Ukrainian legal practice. Because the society has received a document with a number of provisions which contradict not only the Constitution and international legal obligations of Ukraine, but also common sense.

Justifying their efforts to establish total language monopoly, the authors of the bill committ direct falsification of the content of the fundamental state documents. Thus, the preamble states that "Ukraine was proclaimed and established as a sovereign national state …" thus denying the role and mission of more than 10 million citizens who in the ethnic sense consider themselves as belonging to other nationalities, reducing their status to foreigners, and their culture and language – to the cultures and languages ​​of foreign nations. Moreover, they set new obligation of citizens, not envisaged by the Constitution, namely knowledge of Ukrainian language. Persons who do not know it or know it at insufficient level, are proposed to be restricted not only in access to certain professions, but also in their electoral rights – they can not be members of either the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, or members of local councils.

The participants noted that the authors of the law, violating the requirements of Art. 22 of the Constitution of Ukraine, in many cases narrow the content and scope of rights of national minorities. 

As the participants of the meeting stressed out, along with the devoid of logical sense linguistic restrictions provided for radio and television, they also want to restrict the number of periodicals in minority languages, founded by legal entities or individuals, to 15% of their total circulation.
The chairman of the meeting, deputy of Ukraine Istvan Gajdos drew attention to the fact that these and numerous other legislative proposals contained in this bill are a threat to fundamental cultural, social and political rights of citizens of Ukraine belonging to national minorities, violate their constitutional rights, are aimed at getting rid of their existing facilities to meet their national and cultural needs, brutally disregard international legal obligations of Ukraine on protection of human rights, including persons belonging to ethnic minorities.

The Presidium of the Democratic Union of Hungarians of Ukraine adopted a separate Statement on the registration of the opposition "language" bill, in which, in particular, they expressed their outrage and deep concern over the emergence of such a legislative initiative in the highest legislative body of the country.