Romanians have reacted angrily to a young man who filmed himself punching a Nepalese food delivery worker telling him “Go back to your country!”
The man was promptly arrested by a nearby police officer and detained in custody for 24 hours.
„Go back to your own country. You’re an invader!” he was heard saying on footage posted online, before punching him.
The Wednesday evening attack on the man came a week after Dan Tanasă, the vice-president of the far-right AUR party urged the public to refuse takeaways and other courier services from a foreigner, especially if they are from Asia or Africa.
: “Refuse the order if it is not delivered by a Romanian. Stop encouraging the import of workers… unskilled workers in Asia and Africa. Wake up!!,” he wrote in a Facebook post.
Romania has a labor shortage after five million people moved abroad in recent years, most for better job opportunities and Romanian employers have recruited workers from outside the Eu for jobs in hospitality and construction..
The construction industry has a shortage of 400,000 workers, and Nepalese workers are preferred because they are “reluctant to consume alcohol and steal” employers say.
“The punch received in the face by the Nepalese delivery man, this afternoon, in Bucharest, on the grounds that is invading our country is, in fact, a punch in the face of the few development solutions that Romania has in construction,” said Dumitru Tudor Jijie, associate professor at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Iași., emphasizes in a Facebook post.
Jijie said that non-EU workers, often from Asia, supplement their income, by working as taxi drivers or couriers. “Most of those who do it are usually Sri Lankans, who benefit from the advantage of a better knowledge of the English language, but Nepalese are also slowly catching up,” he said.
The Romanian man who was swiftly detained was posted on the Internet by the well-known policeman and civic activist Marian Godina.
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