General Prosecutor's Office closes case file related to alleged minimiation of the Holocaust by AUR party

The General Prosecutor's Office has closed the case in which investigations were carried out in connection with the statement of the AUR (Alliance for the Union of Romanians) representatives minimizing the Holocaust, Agerpres reports.

After four months of investigations, the General Prosecutor's Office closed this case on the grounds that "the deed does not exist."

On January 6, the General Prosecutor's Office notified itself ex officio and opened a criminal case in connection with a press release issued on January 3, 2022 by the AUR party.

The Article 6 paragraph 1 of GEO no. 31/2002 provides: "Denial, contestation, approval, justification or minimization obviously, by any means, in public, of the Holocaust or its effects shall be punished by imprisonment from 6 months to 3 years or by a fine."

On January 3, the Alliance for the Union of Romanians sent a press release asking the Minister of Education, Sorin Cimpeanu, to include the Romanian Language, History and English in the list of subjects for which national competitions (Olympiads) will be organized in the school year 2021 - 2022 and in the years to come.

AUR also claimed that, in recent years, there has been a "systematic action to undermine" the quality of education in Romania by raising to the rank of subjects some "minor topics or which may be the subject of simple lessons in existing subjects (eg "sex education, the history of the Holocaust, etc.), in parallel with the reduction of the importance given to the fundamental subjects for the formation of the new generations: the exact sciences, the Romanian language and literature, the national history."

Later, on January 4, the Israeli ambassador to Bucharest, David Saranga, vehemently condemned "the attitude and insulting statements of some political leaders who considered it appropriate to describe the Holocaust genocide as a "minor issue" to be addressed in the Romanian education system."