Students boycott Creol bar for allegedly barring non-whites

On Saturday, January 16, a mixed-race group of foreign students from the Central European University in Budapest were asked to leave Creol on Zrínyi utca, after spending over one hour at the establishment. In response to what the students claim was discriminatory treatment on the basis of race, the students have launched a petition to boycott the bar. This has subsequently raised the voices of other foreign students in Budapest relaying uncomfortable experiences being a non-white foreigner in Hungary. Other students have criticized the group for the boycott.

Creol representatives were unable to be reached for comment at this time. However CEU student Eva Ferlež returned to Creol yesterday to deliver a letter translated into Hungarian and ask for an explanation. She was told the students were asked to leave for not adhering to the "first-class" dress code, which is posted on the entryway to the restaurant and bar.

Meanwhile Wayne Pan, an American of Chinese heritage who spearheaded the boycott, said since they were not given a reason at the time, "we feel they practiced bad business."

Pan said students had been at Creol for an hour before they were asked to leave, he said no one was acting inappropriately or drunk, refusing to purchase anything, or sitting at a reserved table, mentioning it was ironic they were a group of non-whites kicked out of a bar named Creol - Creoles are non-white or "mixed blood" people living in the Caribbean. The group comprised five men of Nigerian, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese ethnic make-up and eight women from Georgia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Estonia, and Slovenia.

For better or worse, the boycott has caused much debate among other foreign students, some who say they have experienced hostility being a non-white foreigner in Budapest, others who disagree with the boycott.

"For once, someone is taking action," wrote Justus Aungo, a student from Kenya, in response to the boycott. He said he is grateful that people are speaking up about racism in Budapest. "Welcome to the everyday life of some of us here."

"This isn't the first time that CEU students have been confronted with such seemingly unreasonable and rude behavior," wrote MA student Nurangiz Khodzharova.

Viktoryia Novikava, a Belarusian doctorate student, recalled a Kenyan woman who studied in Budapest in 2006-7 who was constantly subjected to rude behavior from locals.

"She would sit down on the metro and people would get up and move away," said Novikava. "Once a little boy started hitting and spitting on her, and his mother did nothing."

Others like Hungarian student Áron Szele are less sympathetic, arguing that there was a lack of credible evidence of racial discrimination, and that "cases such as this [are] created for the sole purpose of one's own publicity," he wrote in an open e-mail.

Others disagree, "to blame the students for intentionally generating a conflict and labeling it 'discrimination' just to get attention seems [to be a] typical mechanism of xenophobia [...] It is extremely beneficial that people finally had the courage to stand up and say: 'foreign students are being discriminated against in Budapest,'" said Manuel Mireanu, a student in the International Relations department at CEU.

Ilona Denes, a Romanian student, wrote in an email that she was "in favor of anti-discriminatory acts" and "was revolted by the possibility that such acts can exist in a multi-cultural environment."

Anand Desmukh who was at Creol that night said the experience has made his first trip to Europe a bit of a disappointment.

"I come from India where we are famous for our hospitality. I would never be treated this way and would never treat anyone this way." he said.

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