Dan Tanasă, the AUR's Hungarian-hating MP, to stand trial

The Prosecutor General's Office is putting Dan Tanasă, a member of parliament for the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), on trial, charging him with incitement to violence, hatred or discrimination. According to the indictment, on 19 August 2025 Tanasă wrote on social media: “Refuse the delivery if it's not brought by a Romanian. Stop supporting the importation of unskilled workers from Asia and Africa. Wake up! Dictatorship never builds itself, it is built on the applause of the feeble-minded. The West is sinking under the Islamist wave, and Europeans are crying into their hands because they paid no attention to mass immigration. I don't want that in Romania!” Prosecutors say that with this post, the MP incited the public to hatred and discrimination on racial, national, ethnic and religious grounds against Asian and African workers employed in Romania.

The indictment also stresses that discrimination can seriously disrupt relations among citizens, since social relations must be based on mutual respect. According to the indictment, parliamentary immunity does not protect Tanasă either, since it covers only votes cast and political opinions expressed while exercising his mandate, and lawmakers can be prosecuted for any act unrelated to these. The case will be heard at first instance by the High Court of Cassation and Justice; under Article 369 of the Romanian Criminal Code, incitement to hatred carries a prison sentence of six months to three years, or a fine.

Tanasă's post last August was not taken seriously only by commenters. Seven days later, on the evening of 26 August, a young man from Bucharest, Cosmin Tudoran, punched a Bangladeshi food delivery rider in the face in the capital's 2nd District, called him an “intruder,” ordered him to go back to his own country, and even filmed the attack. A police officer who happened to be on his way home from duty witnessed the incident and, after a brief chase, apprehended the attacker, who was brought before the court for assault motivated by racism and xenophobia. During the summer, Tudoran had also posted a video compilation on social media that included the symbol of the Legionary Movement and footage of Hitler standing in front of swastika flags.

Tanasă, however, did not apologize; instead he claimed that the footage was a “staged from beginning to end” fabrication, arguing that street violence was not a consequence of his posts but of governments' failed policies, and that he does not attack anyone because of their origin. AUR's position is similar: when Tanasă was questioned at the Prosecutor General's Office on 17 July this year, the party called the proceedings an “obvious abuse” and stated that it “categorically rejects any equivalence between criticizing a public policy and incitement to hatred.”

The name Dan Tanasă is no stranger to Transylvanian Hungarians. For years he has consistently gone after everything Hungarian: together with the Civic Media association, he has filed dozens of lawsuits against the Szekler flag, Hungarian and bilingual signs, Hungarian-language plaques at mayor's offices, and almost anything in public space that recalls the presence of the Hungarian community — and he has often won these cases in court. Yet he has never been held accountable for his anti-Hungarian campaign, since in Romanian public life, railing against Hungarians has for decades not counted as a crime but rather as a patriotic virtue. Now, however, it seems that the Filipino, Nepali, Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi guest workers — without whom Romania's construction industry, hospitality sector and food delivery services could no longer function — may achieve something the Szekler flag never managed: Tanasă could get his wrist slapped. Whether the High Court of Cassation and Justice will ultimately convict him remains to be seen; given the practice of Romanian courts, the case could easily drag on for years and end up time-barred. But it is already clear that AUR's politics of hatred does not stop at Hungarians. Whoever is bothered today by a bilingual place-name sign will tomorrow take issue with a delivery rider's skin color, and after a while someone will turn those words into a fist and strike with it.

Ugar