By Zoltan Simon and Balazs Penz
Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Hungary is contending with rising resentment toward its Roma, or Gypsy, population as the economy sinks and unrest grows.
A police chief who last month blamed Roma for crime in his city was fired by the government, then reinstated after more than 1,000 people protested. Anti-Roma demonstrations also erupted in western Hungary last weekend after media reports that Roma men were responsible for the murder of a local athlete. A court in December banned a two-year-old uniformed nationalist group sworn to tackle what it called “Roma crime.”
As in other European countries, Hungary’s Roma live in the poorest areas and endure the highest rates of unemployment, said Janos Ladanyi, director for the Center of Social, Regional and Ethnic Conflicts in Budapest. Clashes will become more frequent as the economic crisis engulfs the region, unless the rule of law can be enforced, he said.
“This is a time bomb,” said Ladanyi. “I hope the alarming events of the past few weeks will make the sensible majority and especially the political elite recognize that we can’t go down this road. This road is a dead end. It leads to the Balkans.”
The government is trying to balance public resentment and the need for order. Justice Minister Tibor Draskovics on Feb. 8 ordered police to increase patrols and the cabinet the same day decided to direct extra funds to security forces.
Need to Act“We have to act while we can, not wait until the prejudices and the urge to vigilantism distil into unmanageable social phenomena,” Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, 47, wrote on his Web site. “We have to act against violence most decisively.”
The opposition Fidesz party, which is leading the governing Socialist Party in opinion polls ahead of elections next year, said the government should focus more on catching criminals than on worrying about prejudice.
“We have to tell it like it is: the number of serious crimes committed by people of Gypsy origin is rising at an alarming pace,” Fidesz said in a statement yesterday. “We demand that the government, instead of finding excuses based on the origins of the perpetrators, find the perpetrators and protect the rights and interests of the victims.”
The situation isn’t helped by the decline of what was once eastern Europe’s economic dynamo.
Unemployment probably rose to 8.3 percent in January, the highest in at least 10 years, according a Bloomberg survey of economists. Official data is due on Feb. 27.
IMF Aid
Last year, the government was forced to turn to the International Monetary Fund to avert a debt default, and the economy is forecast to contract as much as 3 percent this year.
Marian Cozma, 26, a Romanian national handball player, was stabbed to death in front of a dance club in the town of Veszprem in western Hungary on Feb. 7. Two of the three suspects were detained in Austria late the next day, Hungarian police said in a Feb. 9 statement. The third is being sought.
“Everyone in the whole wide world knows that those murderous animals were Gypsies,”
wrote columnist Zsolt Bayer in daily Magyar Hirlap. “A huge number of Gypsies have given up on coexistence and given up on their humanity.”
Gyurcsany ordered state institutions to cancel subscriptions to the daily, his office said in a statement yesterday.
‘
Discrimination and Persecution’Albert Pasztor, the police chief in Miskolc, claimed at a Jan. 30 press conference that all the December and January burglaries in the city of 180,000 were committed by Roma. Draskovics reinstated him after street protests from a crowd estimated at 1,500 by state-run MTI news agency.
With about 10 million people, the Roma have made up the European Union’s largest ethnic minority since the bloc started expanding eastward in 2004. The EU operates an integration program, with traineeships and funding for anti-discrimination groups, according to the European Commission’s
Web Site.
“Roma communities in Europe have long faced discrimination and persecution,” the site said.
Rob Kushen, managing director of the
European Roma Rights Center, blames the media and growing support for nationalist political parties for fueling hatred.
“What you have is a political climate that plays up ethnic tensions and attempts to demonize the Roma minority,” said Kushen, whose center is in Budapest. “That’s a serious concern. You create the climate for an increase in tension.”
Members of the nationalist group, Magyar Garda, wore 1930s- style uniforms and armbands. It was established in 2007 by the nationalist party Jobbik, which has organized a demonstration for Feb. 13 in Budapest to protest “Roma crime.”
Flag Wavers
During the past two years, members marched in Budapest and villages with a large Roma population under a red-and-white striped flag similar to one used by Hungary’s Nazi-allied government in World War II. The group was banned in December for inciting fear among minorities.
The biggest population of Roma in Europe is in Romania, estimated at as much as 2.5 million people, according to the Roma rights center.
The Roma in Hungary number 200,000 to 700,000, or 2 to 7 percent of Hungary’s 10 million people, Ladanyi said. While many don’t state their ethnicity in the census, about 40 percent are considered “permanently excluded” from society, he said.
“My concern is for the 15 percent or so of Roma who have managed to leave the shantytowns, who are trying to join the middle class but whose tentative grip may slip now during the economic crisis,” said Ladanyi.
To contact the reporters on this story: Zoltan Simon in Budapest at
zsimon@bloomberg.net Balazs Penz in Budapest at
bpenz@bloomberg.net .
Last Updated: February 11, 2009 06:08 EST Labels: Discrimination, European Roma Rights Center, Gypsy, Gypsy Discrimination, Gypsy Violence, Hungary, Racism, Roma
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