The "Calea Neamului" organization is preparing to place 150 wooden crosses in the military cemetery in Valea Uzului on Saturday to replace the removed concrete crosses. The mayor of Sânmartin hopes the Romanian authorities will do their job.
The illegally erected concrete crosses have been removed from the military cemetery in úzvölgy, Sándor Birtalan, mayor of Csíkszentmárton, confirmed to MTI.
The mayor of the Harghita County municipality went to the site personally on Thursday to verify the change and confirmed the news afterwards. "We have checked the site, the crosses, the monument and the flag holders have been removed," the mayor told MTI. He said the process had been completed and the final court decision had been implemented.
Another victory for the Hungarians in Transylvania in the case of the military cemetery in Úz Valley: the Bacau County Court has finally cancelled the ownership of the cemetery by the town of Dormánfalva (Darmanesti) in Bacau County, Moldova.
An extract of the judgment of the Bacău County Court of Appeal, which was handed down on Tuesday, was published on the Romanian courts' portal on Wednesday morning.
The Bacău Trial Court ruled on Friday that the appeal in a case against the military cemetery in Úzvölgy was unfounded and upheld the lower court's ruling in favour of Csíkszentmárton.
An extract of the second instance judgment of the Trial Court of Bacău was published on the Romanian Courts Portal on Friday. According to this, the appeal is unfounded and the judgment of the first instance will become final. Exactly one year ago to the day, the first instance judgment annulled the building permit for the Romanian plot of the cemetery and ordered the demolition of the illegal building.
transylvanianow.com - August 3, 2021 | Attila Szoó
The trial of the administrative lawsuit based on the unsolved border dispute between the Hargita (Harghita) County’s Csíkszentmárton (Sânmartin Ciuc) and the Bákó (Bacău) County’s Dormánfalva (Dărmănești) will begin next month, while in another lawsuit relating to the Úz Valley military graveyard, Dormánfalva launched an appeal because of the first instance court decision (via szekelyhon.ro).
Read the full article here: transylvanianow.com
Title image: Úz valley military cemetery, August 26, 2020
transylvanianow.com - May 28, 2021 | Orsi Sarány
On Wednesday, May 25, the Court of Bákó (Bacău) County repealed the decision of the Dormánfalva (Dărmănești) City Council from March of 2019 in which it declared that the Úz Valley military cemetery was public property belonging to Dormánfalva. An abstract of the decision was published on the court’s website. The judgment at first instance is not final, and an appeal may be launched 15 days after the official announcement of the decision, Hungarian newspapers report.
Read the full article here: transylvanianow.com
Title image: Úz valley military cemetery, August 26, 2020
transylvanianow.com - December 1, 2020 | Attila Szoó
The border dispute between Hargita/Harghita and Bacău counties, as well as with the Csíkszentmárton (Sânmartin)/Dărmănești settlements, has reached another important milestone: As the legally binding ruling abolished Dărmănești city’s falsely claimed ownership of the Úz Valley military graveyard, the rightful owner, Csíkszentmárton/Sânmartin, along with the Harghita County Council, decided to mark the settlement’s border with bilingual signs (via Székelyhon).
Read the full article here: transylvanianow.com
Title image: Úz valley military cemetery, August 26, 2020
transylvanianow.com - October 8, 2020 | Attila Szoó
Marosvásárhely/Târgu Mureș Court of Appeals made its legally binding decision on Tuesday that the Úz Valley military graveyard belongs to Csíkszentmárton (Sânmartin Ciuc); therefore, the erection by residents of Dormánfalva (Dărmănești) of the concrete crosses in the cemetery last year was illegal.
Read the full article here: transylvanianow.com
transylvanianow.com - September 29, 2020 | Attila Szoó
The lawsuit based on the unsolved border dispute between the Hargita (Harghita) County's Csíkszentmárton (Sânmartin Ciuc) and the Bákó (Bacău) County's Dormánfalva (Dărmănești) was initiated by Csíkszentmárton earlier this year and later transferred to the Bákó County Court in August. Csíkszentmárton representatives objected to this move, fearing that it would influence the court’s decision, and wanted a neutral court assigned to the case instead. Now, this is exactly what is going to happen. Last week, the case was taken away from the Bákó Court as well, and a neutral location for the lawsuit will be decided by the Supreme Court of Cassation and Justice.
Read the full article here: transylvanianow.com
transylvanianow.com - August 13, 2020 | István Fekete
The border dispute between Csíkszentmárton/Sânmartin and Dărmănești is set to be transferred to Bacău County Court, but the representatives of Csíkszentmárton are not happy with the decision. As the settlements’ borders also represent the border between Harghita and Bacău counties and the ownership of the Úz Valley military graveyard is at stake, Csíkszentmárton fears the aforementioned move will influence the court’s decision, so a neutral court is a must, Székelyhon reports.
Read the full article here: transylvanianow.com
Hungary Today | 03 August 2020
The slogan “Out of the country with the Hungarians!” is not an incitement, according to a Romanian prosecutor’s verdict about the Úzvölgye (Valea Uzului) incident. The decree contains other surprising conclusions too.
This is the decree by which the prosecutor of the Moinești (Mojnest) court closed an investigation without charges about the violent events in the Úzvölgye military cemetery. On June 6, 2019, Romanian nationalists broke onto the site and started abusing the peacefully protesting ethnic Hungarians. The military cemetery is the largest WW1 memorial site in Romania’s Hargita (Harghita) County, containing the graves of some 600 soldiers from Austria-Hungary. However, the local council of the nearby town of Dormănești (Dormánfalva), in Bacau (Bákó) County, has moved presumably unlawfully to establish a memorial site in the cemetery for Romanian soldiers who fell in the Second World War. This is what the Hungarians and Szeklers tried to prevent by forming a human chain when the incident occurred.
transylvanianow.com - August 4, 2020 | Éva Zay
It has now been made public why the case concerning the scandalous acts committed last year in the WWI-era Austro-Hungarian cemetery in the Úz Valley was closed without any indictment. According to prosecutor Daniel Gălbează, no criminal offense was committed at the site. He is also of the opinion that the slogan “Out with Hungarians from the country” is a “so-called anti-Hungarian chant” but is “neither instigation, nor discrimination.” The case had actually already been closed in February, but the motivation for the prosecutor’s decision was published just the other day, Hotnews portal reported.
Read the full article here: transylvanianow.com
transylvanianow.com - July 21, 2020 | Attila Szoó
The Csíkszereda/Miercurea Ciuc Court in the first instance invalidated the gendarmerie report in connection to the RON 3,000 (EUR 620) penalty given to President of Hargita/Harghita County Csaba Borboly. The fine was for helping to organize the human chain formed in front of the Úz Valley military cemetery on June 6 of last year.
Read the full article here: transylvanianow.com
transylvanianow.com - July 15, 2020 | Orsi Sárány
In its final decision on Tuesday, June 14, the Marosvásárhelyen (Târgu Mureș) Court ordered the prefect of Bákó (Bacău) County to issue all legal documents in its possession concerning the Úz Valley cemetery. The judgment was published on the portal of the Romanian courts.
The lawsuit against the Bákó County prefect was initiated by Hargita County Council President Csaba Borboly, as an individual, after the prefect rejected his request for data.
Read the full article here: transylvanianow.com
transylvanianow.com - June 16, 2020 | Attila Szoó
The US State Department, the federal department responsible for carrying out the foreign policy of the United States, published a 22-page report on religious freedom in Romania, in, which among others, the Úz Valley incident is mentioned.
transylvanianow.com - May 29, 2020 | Attila Szoó
On Thursday, nearly 100 Romanian nationalists, led by Mihai Tîrnoveanu, went to the WWI-era Austro-Hungarian graveyard in Úz Valley, despite curfew restrictions in place.
After last year’s violent actions, when an angry Romanian crowd broke into the cemetery, despite a chain Hungarians silently praying around its fence, nearly 100 Romanians went to the graveyard again this year to hold a commemoration. Similar to last year’s event, the organizer was the president of the nationalist Calea Neamului Association (The Way of the Nation), Mihai Tîrnoveanu. The massive crowd neglected current curfew restrictions between settlements due to the coronavirus pandemic to make the trip on Thursday to the graveyard. Tîrnoveanu, for example, had to cross multiple county borders to get there, as he lives in Brassó/Brasov County.
Read the full article here: transylvanianow.com
transylvanianow.com - February 4, 2020 | Orsi Sarány
Last year, the biggest interethnic conflict of Romania, between the Hungarian and Romanians living in the country, was triggered by the problems surrounding the Úz Valley cemetery, more specifically, when residents of a Romanian town, Dormánfalva (Dărmănești), occupied a part of the Austro-Hungarian military graveyard. According to the mayor of Dormánfalva, 149 Romanian soldiers are buried in the cemetery; that’s why he ordered, illegally, the construction of 52 crosses and a big Romanian Orthodox cross in the graveyard. Hungarians from all over Transylvania tried to stop the inauguration of the newly built Romanian parcel, but they could not fight off the Romanian crowd…
Read the full article here: transylvanianow.com
transylvanianow.com - November 7, 2019 | István Fekete
Delegations from Hungary, Germany, Russia, and Romania participated in an official on-site counseling meeting initiated by the Romanian National Office of Heroes’ Cult (ONCE) at the Úz Valley military graveyard. The private meeting was organized as a follow-up to discussions held in late June between the Romanian and Hungarian delegations in the aftermath of the Dărmănești mayor, Constantin Toma, and his backers defying Romanian and international law by establishing a memorial to fallen Romanian soldiers in World War II. At the Dărmănești mayor’s office’s order, 50 concrete crosses were erected illegally, along with a concrete obelisk.
Read the full article here: transylvanianow.com
transylvanianow.com - October 31, 2019 | Attila Szoó
The everyday life of WWI soldiers – especially their “civilian” moments – came to life via pictures exhibited in October for a limited time of just six days at the Csíkszereda/Miercurea Ciuc County Hall Gallery. The photographs featured in the exhibition had been painstakingly tracked down and bought up by photo historian Dr. Attila Molnár over many years.
Read the full article here: transylvanianow.com
transylvanianow.com - October 28, 2019 | István Fekete
The Bacău county prefect Valentin Ivancea has attacked the Dărmănești local council’s decision to hijack the Úz Valley cemetery (and adjacent land) from the Csíkszentmárton local authority. It also went after the mayor’s office for issuing illegal construction license to build a new parcel for Romanian soldiers in the Austro-Hungarian military graveyard, according to a press release issued by Harghita County Council.
Read the full article here: transylvanianow.com
transylvanianow.com - October 28, 2019 | Attila Szoó
Last Friday, the mayor of Dărmănești (Dormánfalva in Hungarian), Constantin Toma, decorated those who were the first to enter the Austro-Hungarian military graveyard of Úz Valley on June 6 after bypassing the peacefully praying human chain of ethnic Hungarians. The orthodox priest who – after the violent graveyard occupation – consecrated the freshly and illegally erected Romanian war memorial in the cemetery was also decorated.
Read the full article here: transylvanianow.com
transylvanianow.com - October 4, 2019 | István Fekete
The Romanian Defence Ministry has postponed a joint Hungarian-Romanian on site fact-finding visit to the disputed Úz Valley military graveyard for the last week of October, putting the visit just after a planned demonstration of a radical Romanian nationalist group.
Read the full article here: transylvanianow.com
hungarytoday.hu | MTI-Hungary Today 02 October 2019
Hungary has turned to the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers over a dispute with Romania around a memorial site in the Úzvölgye (Valea Uzului) military cemetery in the country’s Harghita County, a lawmaker of ruling Fidesz said in Strasbourg on Tuesday.
transylvanianow.com - September 12, 2019 | István Fekete
Far-right Orthodox nationalist groups and their leaders have a special gift, a “natural-born talent,” for promoting false data to their followers, which recently came into the spotlight due to the interethnic conflict caused by these people at the Úz Valley military graveyard on June 6. They deliberately ignore the information published in official documents and forcefully push their own myths and agenda, which causes unwanted tensions between Hungarians and Romanians. The latest such effort is a torch-lit march scheduled for October 25 at the Úz Valley cemetery in memory of the 149 Romanian soldiers who fell in the Úz Valley battle during World War I.
Read the full article here: transylvanianow.com
transylvanianow.com - September 5, 2019 | Attila Szoó
Based on charges by Romanian nationalist organizations the Romanian National Anti-Discrimination Council (CNCD) started to investigate the responsibility of some Transylvanian-Hungarian politician in connection to the Úz Valley incident that happened on the 6th of June 2019.
Read the full article here: transylvanianow.com
transylvanianow.com - August 27, 2019 | István Fekete
Thousands of people participated in the 25th commemoration of the World War II battle in the Úz Valley on August 26. The cemetery – which on June 6, 2019 served as a battlefield of an artificially generated ethnic conflict – and its surroundings were filled with Hungarians who came to pay homage to the memory of the fallen Szekler soldiers who faced the Russian army on the same day in 1944 (via Székelyhon).
transylvanianow.com - August 23, 2019 | István Fekete
Representatives of the churches, communities, and local authorities will participate along with traditionalists in the 25th commemoration of the Úz Valley battle. Sándor Tamás, president of Kovászna/Covasna County Council, and Csaba Borboly, president of Hargita/Harghita County Council, called on all county citizens to participate in this event on August 26 at the cemetery where the fallen heroes’ remains rest.
hungarytoday.hu – Péter Cseresnyés | 25 July, 2019
At this year’s Bálványos Free Summer University and Student Camp, the ethnic and diplomatic conflict between Romania and Hungary in connection to the Úzvölgye incident was a crucial topic. According to an official of the Hungarian Ministry of Defense, five out of the eleven soldiers buried in the Úzvölgye military cemetery who are considered Romanian citizens by the Romanian authorities, were in fact Hungarians.
transylvanianow.com - July 25, 2019 | István Fekete
One of the highly anticipated discussions during the Tusványos summer camp was that about the Úz Valley military graveyard, and it wasn’t without its surprises: five of the eleven Romanian soldiers the Romanian government claims to be resting there were citizens of the Hungarian Kingdom, and a report from 1941 written by Romanians backs up the Hungarians’ data.
Read the full article here: transylvanianow.com
transylvanianow.com - July 22, 2019 | István Fekete
The illegally placed and forcefully inaugurated Úz Valley Memorial is not a legionary symbol – which is illegal in Romania, according to law – but a Celtic cross, a pre-Christian symbol taken from the Christian funeral culture, the National Institute for Romanian Holocaust Studies “Elie Wiesel” (INSHR EW) told TransparentNews. This symbol is used in cemeteries, places of worship, vestments, or church adornments, while admitting that the Celtic cross has been used by far-right extremists in the interwar period, both in Europe and the U.S.
MTI-Hungary Today | 11. 07. 2019.
A statement released by Romania’s foreign ministry on recent talks between the Hungarian and Romanian foreign ministers regarding unresolved bilateral issues will make it more difficult to improve ties, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Wednesday.
MTI-Hungary Today | 09.07.2019
Hungary’s foreign minister discussed with his Romanian counterpart Romania’s recently adopted administrative code and developments at a commemoration in that country’s WWI military cemetery at Valea Uzului (Úzvölgye), in Slovakia on Tuesday.
The source of information is AGERPRES | 09 July 2019
Szijjarto also urged Melescanu to help facilitate consultations between experts from both countries on the Valea Uzului cemetery and to hold a joint visit to the site as soon as possible.
Read the full article here: agerpres.ro
transylvanianow.com - 02.07.2019 | István Fekete
The recently modified emergency decree facilitating minority rights has prompted the same group of organizations responsible for the ethnic conflict at the Úz Valley military graveyard to organize a protest in front of the government building in Bucharest on Sunday, July 7 against the “Magyarization of Romania”, alleging that the new administrative law means Hungarian will become the second official language in Romania. They are demanding that the government cancel the modifications, because “Romania will become a Babel Tower because of this sinister experiment.”
Read the full article here: transylvanianow.com
MTI-Hungary Today | 02.07.2019
“Anti-Hungarian voices” have become louder and “attacks” on the Hungarian minority stronger within Romania’s political elite, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in parliament on Tuesday and called for measures.
Hungary’s diplomacy “cannot stay silent”, Szijjártó added. He argued that in the international arena “the Hungarian position cannot be untouched by anti-Hungarian attacks and provocations” when issues concerning Romania are discussed.
transylvanianow.com - 02.07.2019
The artistic concept of the illegally erected concrete crosses and the memorial in the Úz Valley military graveyard has been retrospectively approved by the Minister of Culture and National Identity. Although this doesn’t mean the ministry formally approves the illegally created Romanian parcel in the Úz Valley cemetery, it shows it is still possible to find a workaround when it comes to the rule of law and obtain permits retrospectively, so the course of the story can ultimately be changed. That is, if certain parties remain silent on the matter. But this time, on top of the illegality of the concrete crosses, there is one more thing: the memorial erected in the graveyard is a huge Celtic cross, which consists of a square cross interlocking with or surrounded by a circle, one of the most important symbols used by the far-right in Romania.
Read the full article here: transylvanianow.com
The source of information is AGERPRES | 28 June 2019
The Ministry of National Defense states that indisputable archival evidence on the multinational character of the Valea Uzului heroes' cemetery was presented at the working meeting of the Romanian and Hungarian experts, but that the Romanian side has found with regret that the representative of Hungary's Institute and Museum for Military History has distorted the discussions.
Read the full article here: agerpres.ro
transylvanianow.com - 27.06.2019 | István Fekete
“Based on the archive sources we’ve shown to the Romanian delegation, it is obvious that the illegally erected concrete crosses were placed on top of the remains of the Austro-Hungarian soldiers, and we have asked our Romanian partners to terminate the current desecration of the Úz Valley military graveyard,” Colonel Vilmos Kovács, commander of the Institute and Museum of Military History and leader of the Hungarian delegation in Bucharest, told MTI. Both delegations have emphasized the importance of open and pragmatic communication as the proper way to find a solution acceptable to all interested parties.
Read the full article here: transylvanianow.com
The source of information is AGERPRES | 27.06.2019
Romanian and Hungarian experts have discussed the controversial situation of the Valea Uzului cemetery at a working meeting.
Romania's Ministry of National Defence (MApN) reports that the working meeting of the experts was held in Bucharest on Wednesday in an attempt to look into shared interest in war cemeteries and memorials.
According to the ministry, the agenda of the meeting included the war hero cemetery at Valea Uzului, a multinational war necropolis.
Read the full article here: agerpres.ro
MTI - Hungary Today | 27.06.2019
Talks on the Úzvölgye (Valea Uzului) memorial cemetery in Romania, a resting place of Hungarian WW1 soldiers, started between Hungarian and Romanian authorities, Colonel Vilmos Kovács, the head of the Hungarian delegation, told MTI on Wednesday.