Acting together against the violation of the rights of ethnic minorities in any country is an important obligation for the international community, Péter Szijjártó, the foreign minister, said in Geneva on Friday.
According to a statement from the foreign ministry, Szijjártó spoke at the United Nations Forum on Minority Issues, and said “the centre of the heart of Hungary’s foreign policy is to make sure that the rights of Hungarian communities that live outside our borders are respected.”
He said one of the keys for preserving their national identity was access to “our very unique” mother tongue, adding that that access was not fully provided for ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine’s Transcarpathia province.
“The members of the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia have to suffer from the fact that their rights … are seriously violated” in terms of using their mother tongue in education, media, culture, and public administration, the minister said.
“There are even legislative attempts to ban using the mother tongue out of the classes,” he said, adding that under international law those violations could not be explained.
“We consider it an obligation of the international community to stand up when it comes to violation of rights of national communities regardless in which country it takes place,” the minister said, adding that such violations must not be considered a bilateral issue.
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