Hungary Roma MEP Warns Of Rising Far-Right Threat

A rise of prejudice was confirmed by a study last month.

Attacks on Roma people in Hungary have risen at an alarming rate due to a strengthening of far-right radical groups, a Roma Hungarian member of the European Parliament said.

Viktoria Mohacsi, who is a member of the opposition Free Democrats, said police should investigate potential racial motives behind a series of attacks on houses of Roma, in which four people were killed earlier this month.

"These crimes have increased significantly in the past one, one and a half years and ... this can be linked to the launch of the Hungarian Guard," Mohacsi said in an interview on Friday.

The Hungarian Guard was launched in August 2007 and drew widespread criticism because of its black uniform and insignia which critics said were reminiscent of the Nazi era.

The guard, backed by the far-right Jobbik political party which is not represented in parliament, says it is a civic group which wants to preserve Hungarian culture and national values.

By now it has more than 1,500 members and has held marches in several places to demonstrate against "Roma crime".

Jobbik says it is not behind the attacks on the Roma.

"We obey the laws ... and throwing a grenade into a house where there are children is not our method," Gabor Vona, chairman of Jobbik, was reported as saying by Hungarian news agency MTI on Friday.

Hungary, a member of the European Union since 2004, has one of the largest Roma communities in eastern Europe, accounting for 5-to-7 percent of its population of 10 million.

Police announced on Thursday they had set up a special unit to investigate 14 cases in which Roma were attacked this year.

Most of the cases involved firebombs thrown at Roma houses and shots fired, with no injuries, but earlier this month two Roma were shot dead in an attack on two houses in the northeast.

This week the killings of two Roma in a grenade attack in southern Hungary sparked a dispute between police and the minority ombudsman who said police ruled out racial prejudice prematurely.

Mohacsi, who has received threatening emails, welcomed that police had set up a special unit which will also examine racist motives behind the attacks.

She also said far-right elements have contributed to a strengthening of prejudices against Roma in the public.

"The term 'Roma crime' has become a widespread expression in ...Hungarian society," she said.

A rise of prejudice was confirmed by a study last month.

"The far-right actions which we have seen since the autumn of 2006 .... and the appearance of the Magyar Garda (Hungarian Guard) broke down barriers in the public which earlier significantly restrained an open articulation of prejudices," the study by think-tank Political Capital showed.

Mohacsi said the EU, which has a Roma population of 8-12 million, has so far failed to adopt a strategy for the social inclusion of the Roma and has not declared in legislation that segregation in schools is discriminatory.

"The current economic crisis ... will hit people living in entrenched deep poverty and the Roma the hardest. I would like to remind every responsible politician that this is also why a European Roma Strategy must be created," Mohacsi said in the European Parliament on Wednesday.

Peter Feldmajer, chairman of the biggest Hungarian Jewish religious group Mazsihisz, told Reuters the increasingly vocal far-right radical groups were a concern.

"It's obvious the radical right is, if not strengthening, definitely becoming more organised, raising its voice and getting increasing media attention," he said.