Roma self-government condemns incident against elderly woman in Gyongyospata
The local Roma self-government of Gyongyospata on Monday said it regretted an incident against an elderly woman on the weekend, which it said "was a wrong answer given in response to open provocation."
In the north Hungarian village that has been much in the spotlight in the past few days a Roma woman returning home with a group of women and children hit a local non-Roma woman twice in the face on Sunday afternoon. The victim was taken to hospital, while the police detained the attacker, MTI reported earlier.
Janos Farkas Jr., the president of the Roma self-government, said in a statement that the incident took place when a local non-Roma resident openly threw degrading remarks at members of the Roma group who were getting off the bus.
He said the local self-government condemned the incident, adding however that "the local Roma community, exposed to provocations and intimidation for weeks, has become psychologically exhausted."
"Since certain news channels carried ill-intent reports that the incident targeted the non-Roma community, we want to stress that Roma people consider certain members and groups of the far right dangerous because of the provocations and intimidations targeting our community and the peace of our village over the months," the statement said.
On Friday morning 267 Roma women and children were transferred from the village by bus to Budapest and Szolnok after the radical nationalist group called Vedero, or Defence Force, organised a camp for basic military training near the Roma neighbourhood for April 22-24. Police later on Friday detained eight members of the group during the dispersion of the camp.
The first group of the Roma women and children returned to their homes by bus on Sunday.
On Monday the local court in the city of Eger ordered the release of the eight members of Vedero.
