The president of Romania’s anti-discrimination council says Bucharest Mayor Gabriela Firea has failed to turn up for a hearing to explain her remarks about „a black people’s bar” which have left her open to charges of racism.
President of the Council to Combat Discrimination, Ferenc Csaba Asztalos, told universul.net that Firea had not come to Tuesday’s hearing. He said her presence “wasn’t obligatory” and she had the option of responding in writing, which she hasn’t done so far.
Last week Asztalos said the council had begun an inquiry into Firea’s comments after universul.net wrote an article after Firea said political rival Prime Minister Ludovic Orban’s office used to look like “a black people’s bar” when he was deputy mayor of Bucharest.
“Since his days as the deputy mayor, he’d be sitting in his office like it was a black people’s bar (bar de negri in Romanian), just booze, just cigarettes and disease-ridden people,” she told Antena 3. “I see that Mr Orban has made no effort to raise his level.”
The 47-year-old mayor’s no-show and lack of comment on her earlier remarks suggests she doesn’t consider the issue worth commenting on.
Asztalos said the council would meet in January to discuss the case and issue a decision, with or without Firea’s input.
Orban was deputy mayor from 2004 to 2007. Firea was elected mayor in 2016 and will run in local elections next year. It was not clear how she knew about Orban’s office as they did not work at the city hall at the same time.
Commentator Stelian Tanase told universul.net it was “a racist remark based on a lie about Orban.”
“Racism and sexism is at the base of the Social Democratic Party which has its roots in communism,” Tanase said. In the past, Social Democrat Senator Serban Nicolae called President Klaus Iohannis ‘a Nazi’ in a reference to his ethnic German roots, earning a rebuke from the Elie Wiesel Center.
The expression “black people’s bar” refers to laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The laws, known as Jim Crow laws, mandated the segregation of public schools, public places, and public transportation, and the segregation of restrooms, restaurants, and drinking fountains for whites and blacks. They were overruled by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The council was set up in 2002 to educate and combat instances of discrimination. It has regularly been called to rule on remarks made by Romanian politicians and other public figures.
