FXB Center, Harvard University: Violence and Attacks Against Roma Should Sound Alarms in the International Community

Harvard University’s FXB Center for Health and Human Rights released a
report documenting “Accelerating Patterns of Anti-Roma Violence in Hungary”. The
report is intended to alert the United Nations and the international community
to the persistent patterns of violent attacks and actions against the Roma (pejoratively
called Gypsies). The report calls upon the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention
of Genocide, the Hungarian Government, and the European Union (EU) to take
responsibility and act to avoid the dangers that the Roma and other minority
groups in Hungary have been exposed to in recent years.

The Roma are the largest ethnic minority in Hungary and encounter discrimination
and exclusion on a regular basis across several sectors, including education,
health, employment, housing, and access to other services. About 60% of the Roma
live in secluded rural areas, segregated neighborhoods, settlements, or ghettos.

In the report, the FXB Center makes the case that Hungary’s mounting incidence
of hate crimes, racist propaganda, discrimination, and exclusionary ideologies
indicates a need for measures to ensure the physical and psychological safety of
the Roma and other minority groups. It suggests that warning signs exist that
should sound alarms in the international community.

The report documents that in the last five years in Hungary the establishment of
vigilante groups and hate crimes against Roma and other minority groups has
characterized a climate of increasing social and economic exclusion. Despite the
adoption of EU anti-discrimination regulations and laws, extremist organizations,
private individuals, and state officials in Hungary continue to widely and
openly discriminate against Roma at an alarming rate and through a variety of
methods:

• State officials and members of mainstream parties often use racist public
  statements that incite hate against the Roma and other minority groups.
• Recently established paramilitary extremist groups and organizations are
  increasingly using anti-Roma rhetoric and have organized anti-Roma rallies.
• Extremist organizations hold weapon trainings for members on a regular basis.
• Extreme right parties are consolidating their power. The most visible party is
  the Jobbik Party, whose 47 seats have made it the third-largest group in the
  Hungarian Parliament. The Jobbik Party’s anti-Roma and anti-Jewish rhetoric and
  actions have become increasingly virulent in recent years.
• Several instances of racially motivated crimes and violence by both extremist
  groups and civilians have been recorded by civil society organizations and the
  media, including the killing or injuring of Roma victims, the use of firearms,
  firebombs, grenades, and Molotov cocktails against Roma.

The report underlines the need for increased monitoring and actions by the
Hungarian Government and intergovernmental bodies to combat extremism,
discrimination, and violence against the Roma community, and makes the following
recommendations:

• The EU should design and implement actions to curb the rise of extremism, not
  just in Hungary, but across Europe.
• Hungarian institutions should immediately investigate the legality of
  extremist organizations and consider their prohibition. The European Court of
  Human Rights recognizes that the state has the “obligation to criminalize the
  dissemination of racism, xenophobia or ethnic intolerance, to prohibit every
  assembly and dissolve every group, organization, association or party that
  promotes them.”
• The Hungarian Government should ensure security for its citizens by
  investigating groups and individuals involved in secret combat preparation.

According to Margareta Matache, a Fellow with the FXB Center and a contributing
author to the report, “Roma in Hungary face blatant discrimination on a daily
basis. The wave of anti-Roma violence, organized killings and protests exposes
not only the victims of these acts to great insecurity, but their neighbors,
relatives and the Roma population in Hungary as a whole. State and
intergovernmental bodies should increase their efforts to combat these phenomena
and the international community should push Hungary to take responsibility to
prevent such incidences from occurring.”

• 
  The complete report is available
  here