NGOs demonstrate for Roma interests

A demonstration for the interests of Roma people was held in Budapest on Sunday with the slogan “Free Court! Free Gyöngyöspata!” referring to a contested court ruling on compensation payment to segregated Roma pupils in the northern Hungarian village of Gyöngyöspata.

The demonstration was organised by the Szabad Bíróság Szabad Gyöngyöspata (Free Court, Free Gyöngyöspata) group, Amnesty International Magyarorszag, the Civil Liberties Union (TASZ), the 1 Hungary Initiative, Szocsoma, the We Belong Here network and the Fonix Movement.

Gathering on a square near Nyugati railway station, the demonstrators moved to the building of Hungary’s supreme court Kúria where speakers demanded the independence of courts.

Then they moved to Kossuth Square near Parliament under signs that read “Nobody stands above the law” and “National Roma Alliance”.

There were no signs referring to political parties but several anti-government signs were carried, as well as flags of the teachers union PDSZ, the Hungarian Network of Academics and the international left-wing organisation Antifaschistische Aktion.

Former Budapest Mayor Gábor Demszky, former Alliance of Free Democrats lawmaker Gábor Iványi, former Alliance of Free Democrats and Socialist lawmaker Imre Mécs and head of the Hungarian Roma Parliament organisation Aladár Horváth were among the protesters.

Addressing the demonstration, Jenó Setet, head of We Belong Here, said that the “events of recent weeks” concerning the Gyöngyöspata compensation issue were intolerable. He said that the “Roma communities came under the most severe attack of the past thirty years.”