Hungarian Interior Minister: No one can break the law and take it into their own hands

Last night, after undergoing an exceptionally tense situation during the day, everything was calm in the Hungarian village of Gyöngyöspata. The tensions had been caused by street fighting between local Roma residents and members of paramilitary “Guards”. Hungarian Interior Minister Sándor Pintér is promising to intervene uncompromisingly against those who provoked the violence and against those Roma people who took justice into their own hands.

Police have released video footage from a camera installed to monitor the public space where the fighting took place. The footage shows that a group of extremists, strongly under the influence of alcohol, vented their feelings in a street occupied by Roma families, who protested against their doing so. An altercation followed and the Roma people eventually beat up the provocateurs. The total number of those participating in the conflict is estimated from the footage to have been between 40 and 50 people. Four people were seriously injured. As of this afternoon, police have arrested seven people in relation to the fighting, including one local resident.

Last Friday, almost 300 Roma children and women from Gyöngyöspata, assisted by the Red Cross, were taken away by bus from the village for two days because they feared attack from members of the Véderö (Defense) organization. Roma community leader János Farkas said that as a result of the construction of a training camp for the group, the village had changed into a battlefield and that people were afraid of militia members in military clothing who had been patrolling the village for several weeks.

Péter Szijjártó, spokesperson for the Hungarian Prime Minister, said Hungary is facing a new kind of criminality in which uniformed people are organizing patrols without permission and endangering society through their actions. The government wants to amend the penal code to increase the possible sentencing for such actions.

Hungarian Interior Minister Sándor Pintér said on television that no one can break the law in Hungary, not by dressing in a “Guard” uniform, not by marching, and not by willfully responding to provocation by using iron bars as weapons. Police will proceed against both sides of the conflict with the utmost rigor. Police officers in Gyöngyöspata will be on high alert until the end of the week.

László Horváth, a representative of the local regional administration, called current events in the village a “political festival” being paid for by the taxpayer. To date he says police maneuvers have cost the region 40 million forints.