Roma groups say anti-Gypsy violence linked to rightist groups

Hungary’s police have stepped up an investigation into a spate of attacks against Roma residents which have prompted concerns that the increase in violence against the Roma is connected to the rise in radical nationalism in the country.

Police last week set up a special 50-member unit involving Roma experts to investigate 16 of the attacks perpetrated this year, which includes the recent cold-blooded murder of four Roma villagers on two separate occasions.

Roma representatives suspect radical nationalists of carrying out the attacks, most of which involved the use of handguns, petrol bombs and hand grenades.

One of the radical groups, a paramilitary movement which has inducted over 1,500 members since its launch in August 2007, is the Magyar Garda. Registered as a civic group with the aim of safeguarding Hungarian national values, its members wear black uniforms with insignia similar to Nazi symbols and have used the phrase “gypsy crime”.

The rising number of attacks became a big national issue after a Roma man and a woman on November 3 were killed by shots fired through their windows in the impoverished north east, followed by another incident on November 18, when a Roma couple died after a grenade was thrown through the window of their flat in the city of Pecs, south Hungary.

While the police have not yet collected enough evidence to press charges in connection with any of the attacks, they say the methods used to attack the Roma victims bear similarities.

Police insist that it is too early to say whether the attacks were racially motivated, since no evidence such as explicit messages or symbols associated with radical groups were found at the scene of the attacks.

Roma leaders have said however that they suspected a racial motivation.

Viktoria Mohacsi, a MEP of the liberal opposition Free Democrats who is herself Roma, told MTI that she suspected individuals associated with radical groups were behind the attacks.

Mohacsi said that 51 assaults against Roma residents had been recorded in Hungary over the past 8-10 months, and she had held her own inquiries about nine of these cases, concluding that a racial motivation could not be ruled out.

“I myself have been investigating the attacks since April, and in almost every case witnesses have said they saw people wearing black hoods at the scene. It is also telling that those attacks have been committed against innocent, unprotected, socially disadvantaged people with large families,” she said.

Mohacsi said she welcomed the police initiative to set up a special unit. But she said that before the unit was set up police officials had been uncooperative.

The Jobbik party, which supports the Magyar Garda, says it has nothing to do with the attacks.

Gabor Vona, leader of the radical party and a founder of the Garda, told the press recently that both organisations had become subject to a media and political witch hunt and called on the media, “left-liberal politics” and minority leaders to look for perpetrators elsewhere.

“We abide by the law [...] throwing grenades into houses with children is not our way,” Vona said.

Ombudsman for the minorities Erno Kallai told MTI that the exact motives could not be known for certain, cautiously noting that “even the fact that the attacks had been carried out in quite similar ways might not mean anything”.

Kallai said the statements by Roma leaders suggesting that the attacks had been racially motivated were premature.

“The results of detailed investigations should determine whether they were racially motivated or not,” he said.

But he also criticised the police for having automatically discounted a possible racist motive so soon after the incidents.

“Only half an hour after an attack it must not be stated that a racist act can be ruled out,” he said.

The Roma minority, which is largely poor and experiences everyday discrimination, is Hungary’s largest ethnic minorities with their numbers estimated between 800,000 and 1 million.