THEY WANTED TO HELP BUT WERE ARRESTED

Five Hungarians from Vas county have been arrested in Romania because they took a place name plate in two languages as a present for Ojtoz as the village had no such road sign.

The plate had been made in Hungary and the local mayor had promised to obtain the necessary permit to set it up. When the men wanted to mount the plate, uniformed and armed policemen arrived in a car without number plate and took them to the local police statiton. The Hungarians were detained for four hours and were released only after the personal intervention of Béla Markó, Vice-Premier. The workers were fined a sum equivalent to HUF 18 000 each, said Jenő Kovács, one of the group to Magyar Nemzet. According to the Romanian law roadsigns should be set up in two languages in all settlements where Hungarians live.

Translated by Péter Szentmihályi Szabó