A London Tesco store has just recently put up a poster written in Romanian, warning potential thieves that they will be legally prosecuted if caught stealing and that there are police officers dressed as civilians in the area. The incident became public after a Romanian woman living there posted a comment of dismay and a photo of the warning note.
The story was subsequently published in Romanian media. As the Adevărul.ro news portal noted, recently there have been several shopliftings carried out by Romanian nationals, thus one of the Tesco managers took the controversial decision to warn off potential Romanian thieves in their own language.
Iolanda Costide, a Romanian architect established in the United Kingdom, flagged Tesco’s move on her Facebook page, accusing the supermarket chain of practicing discrimination on ethnic grounds. “Targeting a certain nationality feels blatantly racist and xenophobic. I know we have certain disgusting individuals that don’t give us any pride, but there’s the likes of them in any country, any nationality,” she wrote. Costide then sent an open letter to Tesco CEO Ken Murphy. As she emphasized, “It is unworthy of a chain presenting itself as progressive and in the service [of] people, such as Tesco, to allow ethnic profiling in its shops.”
In her letter, Costide also asked that such posters be removed from Tesco’s shops, or else the matter will be brought “to the attention of the Equalities & Human Rights Commission.” She signed the letter as former president of the National Liberal Party of Romania Association in Great Britain, a group we could find no trace of online.
The Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) has reacted to the case, pointing out to the Adevărul.ro news portal that they took “the appropriate steps” toward the retailer, local and central government and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as well. MAE has expressed “the Romanian side’s surprise and disagreement with the strongly discriminating message.” “The Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is disavowing these types of messages that do not reflect the real picture of the Romanian community in the UK, a community that is well integrated and which brings a real contribution to the development of the British society and economy,” detailed MAE in the answer given to Adevărul.ro.
According to U.K.’s Office for National Statistics, Romanians were the fourth-largest group of foreign nationals in the U.K. with 427,000 residents, behind India (863,000), Poland (818,000) and Pakistan (547,000).
Title image: The store had displayed the warning note in the liquor section
Source:Iolanda Costide/Facebook
