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Council of Europe: Hungary needs to do more to fight discrimination against Roma
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Budapest, September 19 (MTI) – Most national minority representatives have reported an overall favourable situation in Hungary but there are several issues that need to be resolved, such as systemic discrimination and inequality in all fields of life suffered by the Roma, the Council of Europe (CoE) advisory committee on the framework convention for the protection of national minorities said in its latest report.
The nearly 50-page report highlighted the xenophobic and intolerant attitudes that persist within Hungarian society, in particular against the Roma, despite the authorities’ efforts. There have been reports of physical attacks against the Roma in recent years and extremist political movements and parties continue to spread prejudice and hate speech against the Roma, the report added.
Roma continue to suffer systemic discrimination and inequality in all fields of life including housing, employment, education, access to health and participation in social and political life, the committee said in its opinion on Hungary. Additionally, according to evidence collected by the authorities, segregation of Roma school children has become more widespread in recent years. Discrimination of Roma children has deepened, in particular as a result of the approach of “benevolent segregation” promoted by the authorities by which Roma children are expected to “catch up” in separate Roma classes before their supposed inclusion in mainstream education, the report added.
At the same time, the report stated that the socio-economic situation of most national minorities living in Hungary does not diverge from the majority population.
“With the exception of the Roma, persons belonging to various ethnic groups making up the Hungarian society are well integrated and participate fully in the economic, social and cultural life,” it said.
Efforts of the authorities to promote minority cultures and education, together with particular steps taken to strengthen representation of national minorities in parliament and through the national minority self-governments, are widely recognised and appreciated, the report said. Although the legislation provides a high level of protection of minority languages, in practice they are very rarely used in public affairs, it added.
How about this? The council of Europe should get off it’s A$$ and do something real, not just talk about the illegal migrant problem facing Europe. This is instead of sitting back and critizing Hungary for doing their job of it at the expense of the Hungarian Tax payer. Maybe then, Hungary would have the time and money to deal with the Roma issues. One of the issues being that the Roma’s are being shipped back to Hungary and Romania from the west which they EC don’t seem to bring up.