MINELRES: ERRC: Anti-Romani Hatred Promoted by Hungarian Media
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Tue Oct 24 18:30:45 2006
Original sender: European Roma Rights Centre <[email protected]>
ERRC Concerned at Inflammatory Responses to Mob Crime
Budapest, 17 October 2006. The European Roma Rights Centre was
dismayed to learn from the Hungarian media of beating death of Lajos
Szogi, aged 44, by an angry mob. The assault took place in the
afternoon hours of October 15 in the village Olaszliszka in
Borsod-Abauj-Zemplen County, Hungary, as a reaction to a road
incident in which Mr Szogi hit a 11-year-old young girl with his car.
The ERRC condemns mob violence as a very grave crime, and urges the
Hungarian authorities to conduct a prompt and thorough investigation
into all the circumstances of the events and bring all perpetrators to
justice.
The ERRC expresses concern at the way this crime has been covered in
a number of Hungarian media outlets, including major commercial
Hungarian TV channels and dailies, such as TV2 and Magyar Nemzet.
These and reportedly others have engaged in blaming of the local Roma
community, quoting spokespersons of various organisations, public
figures and media representatives as revealing of the "Roma issue". A
number of media also labelled the alleged perpetrators
indiscriminately as "the Roma". Some publications contained extremely
ugly incitement to racist violence, as for example an article by
Zsolt Bayer in Magyar Nemzet of 17 October, 2006, advising drivers to
step on the gas and drive away without stopping if they run over a
Romani child Such publications must be condemned in the strongest
terms and journalists held accountable for fostering anti-Romani
racial hatred and contributing to the stigmatization of an entire ethnic
group.
The ERRC calls on Hungarian journalists, editors and other members of
the media to refrain from inflaming racist sentiment and to maintain
high professional standards of responsible journalism. Racially
inflamatory publications may abruptly and/or dramatically degrade the
public sphere, cause threats to individuals, or otherwise give rise
to arbitrary, race-based harms.
_____________________________________________
The European Roma Rights Centre is an international public interest
law organisation which monitors the rights of Roma and provides legal
defence in cases of human rights abuse. For more information about
the European Roma Rights Centre, visit the ERRC on the web at
http://www.errc.org.
European Roma Rights Centre
1386 Budapest 62
P.O. Box 906/93
Hungary
Phone: +36 1 4132200
Fax: +36 1 4132201
_____________________________________________
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