2020 Ditrău xenophobic incident

Due to the large number of Romanian citizens that have emigrated from Romania, several companies have been left without sufficient human resources, which has led them to hire immigrants. However, a 2019 study by the Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy (IRES) showed that 68% of the Romanians surveyed were highly suspicious of immigrants and 50% would stop them at the border if they could. The inhabitants of Ditrău, composed of Catholic Székelys (Hungarians), are, according to the journalist Keno Verseck, "extremely traditionalist and conservative". Ioan-Aurel Pop, president of the Romanian Academy, has declared that the community of Ditrău is a closed one, coming "from an older world". According to the sociologist Dumitru Sandu, this closure is cultural, being determined by ethnic and religious factors. Locals mainly watch, read and listen to Hungarian media close to the country's government, causing the transmission of liberalist doctrinal elements to them. Due to this affiliation with Hungarian politics, Romania matters little to the inhabitants of Ditrău. On the other hand, according to the newspaper Átlátszó Erdély, in Székely Land, many companies pay their employees with salaries that they consider "indecent", which contributes to the emigration of qualified human resources. Furthermore, according to the journalist Sipos Zoltán, work in the region usually includes overwork, lack of rest days and some of the hours worked are not paid. Thus, a large number of the local population currently works abroad. Csata Zsombor, another sociologist, has indicated that, according to a study on the economy based in ethnicity in Transylvania, a non-Hungarian employee who works in a Hungarian-speaking environment earns 50 to 450 lei less per month than an employee who has the same position but in a company where he is the only Hungarian. He says that the degree of Hungarian ethnic homogeneity at work is related to disadvantage in the salary. There is an average difference of 300 lei per month if someone does not have many Romanian colleagues compared to someone who has a similar position but in a completely Romanian environment. ==Incident==

January , where a large Hungarian population lives. Ditrău is located in the Harghita County. Ditrói Pékség, in Ditrău, is a bakery built with funds from the European Community, which was in need of additional human resources at the time. Then, of the over 90 employees, only 18 were locals from Ditrău. Since the bakery's employers were unable to find new workers in the Harghita County or nearby counties, they decided to hire workers from abroad. Therefore, the bakery legally hired a baker from Hungary in 2019 and in January 2020, two bakers from Sri Lanka. Both are of Sinhalese ethnicity. Further, the company announced its intention to hire another Sri Lankan and four persons from Nepal. In fact, the sales of the bakery dropped by 30%. nor did they want the two Sri Lankans to touch the bread. the employers announced that, although both workers would be retained, they would be transferred to a different stage of the production process. In addition, they also informed the locals that if enough workers could be hired from nearby areas in the next half-year, the bakery would stop looking for people abroad. this one being followed by more offers. On 2 February, after the National Council for Combating Discrimination ordered to be notified in case of relocation of the two Sri Lankans to another stage of the production, the company directors announced that the workers would retain their initial work. Furthermore, they also announced that some of the other workers of the bakery were being threatened for collaborating with the foreigners. Also, one of the bakery's businesspeople announced that due to the incident of the past days, another bakery that was planned to be built in Ditrău with funds from the European Union would be built elsewhere. On 3 February, the local police of Gheorgheni registered a complaint by the company about the events in the village. Throughout the whole incident, the Sri Lankan embassy, concerned about the safety of two workers, stayed in contact with them. The day after a third Sri Lankan worker arrived in Romania on 10 February to work in the bakery, several residents and the chaplain presented the petition agreed at the meeting of 1 February signed by more than 1,800 persons from the village to the town hall. The petition was directed to the town hall, the town council and the bakery. In it, the locals asked the bakery employers not to employ more immigrants, as the local unemployment rate "surpassed 2% of the population" and "the emigration of young people had to be stopped". In addition, the petitioners requested to be shown the documents regarding the professional qualification of the first two Sri Lankans along with their personal documents and the medical certificate. Apologies were sought by the locals and the chaplain for "damage to their reputation", as well as financial compensation to harmed and offended workers for 5 years. Other requests included paid holidays. On 21 February, the owner of the company, Köllő Katalin, announced that it had hired another four workers from Nepal, who would arrive in about a month. In addition, she said the petition had not yet been officially received by the company. On 26 February, the bakery owner met with the chaplain to discuss the incident and the dissatisfaction expressed by the locals. After a consensus was reached, the company expected the workers to continue working, and the local priest, Bíró Károly, urged the population of Ditrău to work at the bakery. The village mayor, Puskás Elemér, said that the situation "is about to normalize". In addition, it was stated that another company in Ditrău was filling an application to bring between 5 and 10 foreign workers to the village. On 3 March, the president of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR), Kelemen Hunor, declared that things had finally calmed down. ==Consequences==

The media coverage of what happened in Ditrău brought to light the fact that it was not an isolated case in Romania. A partner of the company Soter & Partners, which, among other things, brings foreign workers to the country, mentioned several similar cases. Among them was one from Cluj-Napoca, in which several persons protested the presence of Sri Lankan workers in a restaurant and sent a petition to the town hall. Other cases occurred in Râmnicu Vâlcea and in Bucharest. Until February 2020, however, there was no data specifying in how many localities in Romania similar phenomena had happened. According to the journalist Răzvan Bibire, the incident also presents an opportunity to start discussing at a national level the overexploitation suffered by many employees and the difficulties they have in defending their labor rights. It is unknown how possible future cases of this type will be treated. There is a possibility that the media may try to strengthen interethnic borders or attempt to subordinate political objectives. It is also possible that the incident will trigger an open debate on the problems of Romanian society, such as power relations, marginalization and xenophobia. The incident served as a basis for R.M.N., a 2022 drama film written and directed by Cristian Mungiu. ==See also==