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Strasbourg court orders compensation to two Roma abuse victims
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Strasbourg, January 17 (MTI) – The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on Tuesday ruled that the Hungarian state is to pay compensation to two Roma individuals for whom it said police had failed to provide proper protection from racist abuse during an anti-Roma demonstration.
The case concerns a far-right anti-Roma demonstration held in the town of Devecser, in western Hungary, in August 2012. The court said police had failed to protect local Roma residents from abuse during the rally and to properly investigate the case.
Several of the hundreds of demonstrators hurled bottles and rocks towards a Roma family viewing the rally from their yard. Alfred Kiraly, one of the applicants in the case, reported to a police officer tasked with overseeing the protesters that an acquaintance of his had been hit in the head with a rock. Kiraly alleged, however, that police had done nothing about the incident at the time and had only later taken steps to identify the abusive demonstrators.
In their petition filed to the court, Kiraly and Norbert Domotor, the other applicant, said police had remained passive during the demonstration and had failed to adequately protect the Roma residents.