[WCAR] Anti-Romani Hatred Promoted by Hungarian Media

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.




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