Date: Wed, 10 Dec 97 16:52:19 CST
From: "Workers World" <ww@wwpublish.com>
Organization: WW Publishers
Subject: Workers around the world: 12/11/97

Roma protest

Workers World, 11 December 1997

There are over 500,000 Roma and Sinti people (Gypsies) in Hungary. That makes them the biggest single national minority in the country. They have been the targets of vicious racism and discrimination, especially since capitalist rule was restored in 1989.

On Nov. 23 in Budapest, 300 Roma and Sinti demonstrated against local government racism. Seventy-three people had been expelled from their homes and moved into industrial containers on the outskirts of the city. Demonstrators carried banners saying "No to the ghetto."

Aladar Horvath of the Civil Rights Foundation said, "No Hungarian citizen can be isolated from the rest of society for racial or other reasons."

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