“We Attacked the Gypsies, And We Are Proud of It”

Extreme Right Demonstration Gets Violent in Devecser, Hungary

Curiously, there is little to no coverage to be found in the Hungarian media of the racist hate groups violent behavior – in the light of day and in front of cameras – in a Hungarian village last weekend.
The following story, therefore, is not simply about a demonstration organized by the third biggest parliamentary party in Hungary, during which, yet again, they managed to make it crystal-clear how close their alliances are with violent far-right militias which habitually incite to racist violence. This story, however, is also about the media’s lack of coverage of the most outragous agitation of the Hungarian extreme right, and the task to which this puts anyone not personally present to witness the disconcerting rise in the audacity with which these political groups stir up ethnic conflict in the villages of the country. Increasingly it becomes true that the Hungarian media shies away from giving proper reports on the criminal behavior of Jobbik politicians and their paramilitary allies. One of the recent developments in the rhetoric of the far-right, as a result, is their quite liberal application of the word “self-defense” in justification of their intimidating, racist – and is the case here – violent attacks on minorities. In the meantime, the police and the legal establishment is idly standing by. But to the story now. The Hungarian town of Devecser has already received international attention during the red sludge disaster of 2010, when, along with Kolontár, it was one of several unfortunate towns flooded with caustic waste from the nearby toxic material reservoir of teh Ajka alumina plant. Now, two years later, the far-right is focused on the town not because the clean-up the environment remains incomplete, but because they wanted a demonstration of force against what they claim is the mistreatment – or lack of action – of the police of their local supporters in an argument with their Roma neighbors. Violence seems to have ensued during the course of this argument, which precipitated a warning, in the form of a party-sponsored demonstration, of the far-right’s collective force against all Roma residents of the town.
Read more: The Contrarian Hungarian