Members of Jobbik and several uniformed nationalist radical groups
held a protest on Saturday against “gypsy crime” in the east Hungarian
village of Berzék, where on April 21 a middle-aged local man was beaten
to death by members of a Roma (Gypsy) family as he was having a drink in
a local pub.
Supporters of Jobbik and three radical rightist paramilitary groups,
the Hungarian National Guard (Magyar Nemzeti Gárda), the New Hungarian
Guard (Új Magyar Gárda) and Őrsereg, gathered outside the mayor’s office
to protest against what one of the Jobbik MP’s described as a
“holocaust” aimed at ethnic Hungarians. The protesters also lit candles
and laid wreaths on the grave of the victim László Nagy.
Among the speakers were three Jobbik MPs, Gergő Balla, Csaba Gyüre
and Tamás Sneider. According to Sneider, some 1,500-2,000 Hungarians
have been killed by Roma over the past 20 years. “What do you call this,
if not a holocaust? This is also a holocaust,” he said.
Sneider went on to say it wasn’t Jobbik that was racist but the
Hungarian state, which provides free medical checkups to 150,000 Roma
instead of 150,000 sick non-Roma and funds 200,000 Roma children, while
200,000 disadvantaged non-Roma children get nothing.
Some local residents interviewed by portal Index.hu
said they have been living in fear since the incident, but others said
tension between Roma and Hungarian had been practically non-existent
before two “troublesome” Roma families, one of whose member committed
the crime, moved into the village a few years ago.
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