Hungarian Foreign Affairs Committee condemns removal of Turul monument from Mukachevo Castle

Parliament’s foreign affairs committee has condemned the local council’s decision to remove the statue of a turul bird from the Mukachevo (Munkács) Castle in western Ukraine, calling on the Ukrainian government to dissociate itself from the move.

In a resolution, the committee said it was “shocked to learn of the scandalous circumstances of the removal of the Turul statue in Mukachevo”. “The committee firmly condemns this pointless and barbaric move aimed at the intimidation of the Transcarpathian Hungarian community, the destruction of universal cultural heritage and the poisoning of Hungarian-Ukrainian relations,” it said.

The committee said Ukraine had been “continually and methodically” dismantling the cultural, educational and linguistic rights of the Transcarpathian Hungarian community since the approval of the 2017 education law. The committee said Ukraine ignored its international obligations to protect the ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious rights of national minorities.

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