Anti-Roma statements of a mayor qualify as harassment according to the Equal Treatment Authority

On 19 October 2009, the HHC’s lawyer filed an actio popularis claim with the Equal Treatment Authority concerning the statements of the Kiskunlacháza mayor, who in relation to a murder (with regard to which at present the suspicion is that it was committed by a non-Roma person) spoke at a public demonstration about the settlement’s population having had enough of ‘Roma aggression’ and made other statements giving the impression that in his view the murder had been committed by Roma people.

The HHC’s lawyer claimed that by doing so, the mayor had committed harassment in relation to the region’s Roma population. In its decision dated 19 January 2010, the Equal Treatment Authority established that harassment had been committed, forbade the continuation of the violation and ordered that the decision be made public.