PR on the Roma Hungary murders

Press Release on the Hungary murders

Anti-Gypsyism on the rise despite advocacy and legislation

Brussels, February 26^th, 2009 – ERIO, the European Roma Information Office, expresses its deepest concern about the recent attacks against the Roma minority in Hungary, that resulted in the murder of a man and his 5 years old kid. The two were shot while attempting to escape their house, put on flames by Molotov cocktail bottles.

ERIO fully endorses Commissioner Vladimir Špidla’s statement, which recognises that the Roma minority is still “the scapegoat for wider societal problems”.It is also fundamental to remind, as Mr. Špidla stated, that Roma “as fellow citizens, are entitled to their full place in open and inclusive societies. By fighting against the phenomena of Roma exclusion, we also fight against the root causes of the violence and stereotypes Roma suffer from.”

ERIO’s Executive Director, Ivan Ivanov, stated: “Despite all the efforts that civil society organisations and activists advocating for Roma rights have been putting in the fight against racial prejudice for many years now, anti-Gypsy sentiment is still rising, as well as far right extremism is. In this context, governments are lacking the strength to respond to this social unrest, thus allowing the arousal of extremist parties and showing their inability unable to contrast far-right dangerous racist rhetoric. It is happening in the Czech Republic, where the government is not strong enough regarding the ban of the extreme-right Workers’ Party”.

“Hopes and expectations that we, Roma activists and advocates, had 10 years ago are still the same. Almost nothing has changed in the meantime, despite all the cases filed at the European Court of Human Rights and the legislations that came in protection of Roma and other minority groups. Therefore we call on the European institutions and on national and local authorities to do their best to tackle the situation of exclusion and stigmatisation undergone by Roma everywhere in Europe, through political speeches and actions that shall drastically overturn the current racist discourse spreading through the European society”, concludes Ivanov.

For further inquiries, please contact ERIO’s Executive Director: Ivan Ivanov, +32/472/823887