Romany protest not to be organised in Slovak Leles on Saturday

Michal Zurbola, mayor of the municipality Leles, said a Romany protest against bad social conditions planned for Saturday cannot be held as the organisers did not announce it in accordance with law, Zurbola told CTK today.

Zurbola said he received the official announcement too late and it also did not say who is the organiser and where exactly the protest would take place.

"The protest will not be held. I do not yet know whether we will try to organise another demonstration," Mikulas Horvath, the organiser, said.

Horvath originally expected some 300 people to join the protest.

Some 600 Romanies live in Leles, a small municipality in southeast Slovakia.

Zurbola said they neither knew about the protest nor planned to take part in it.

The organisers at first kept the date and place secret fearing that somebody might take action against it. Finally, they chose Leles to prevent disturbance.

Originally, the demonstration was to be held in nearby Trebisov, a district town where Romany riots broke out in 2004 and police were suppressing them for several days.

Tens of thousands of uneducated Romanies live in bad social conditions in eastern Slovakia. The worst situation is in villages with no running water, gas and electricity.