Word: romas
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...Vona, 30, also chaired the Magyar Garda - or Hungarian Guard - a private militia that appeared at Jobbik rallies and marched through scores of Hungarian villages as part of its self-proclaimed mandate to protect "ethnic Hungarians" against the 6%-10% of the population of 10 million that are ethnically Roma, or gypsy. Vona was briefly detained by police at a July 4 rally called to protest a court order banning the Garda, which has now "relaunched" itself by adding the word Movement to its name. Despite police threats to charge Garda leaders with breaking the court order, Vona has promised...
...Police commissioner Bencze says that his officers are investigating as many as 18 incidents of anti-Roma violence, and believe that eight attacks could be the work of the same person or people who killed Koka. "The attacks are usually with Molotov cocktails and various types of firearms," says Bencze. "The attacks are usually at night, and against houses which are on the outskirts of the villages...
...Koka's home at the end of Nefelejcs Utca (Forget Me Not Street) on the edge of Tiszalök's Roma quarter bolsters Bencze's contention that the killer or killers plan their attacks and escapes carefully. By positioning themselves on the outskirts of the community, Koka's killers were able to lie in wait unobserved, and slip away without witnesses seeing their vehicle. According to a source in the Roma National Council, Koka's killers were careful not to leave a shell casing behind as evidence...
...investigation drags on, Roma leaders fear that anger within their community could lead to reprisal attacks. "It is important to know that it is hard for us to keep holding our people back," says Mihaly Balogh, local leader of the National Roma Council in Tiszalök. "I tell everyone that we have a police force that is there to protect us ... But if the murders are not solved soon, it will be very difficult to stop people from acting...
...wave of revenge attacks, Balogh says, would have "terrible consequences" in a country that has become a racial powder keg and has been hit hard by the global economic crisis. "There are parties that are saying that the Roma [are] to blame for the problems in the country," says Orban Kolompar, president of the National Roma Council, who believes the economic downturn will lead to increased support for far-right parties with anti-Roma platforms in both European parliamentary elections this year and Hungarian national elections next. "Voters who are disillusioned [by the crisis] may join them...