Protest over planned rally by right-wing group

Roma pupils have been kept home from school in the north-western Hungarian village of Ivan in protest against a demonstration planned by the Magyar Garda, a radical nationalist paramilitary group, national daily Nepszabadsag said on Tuesday.

The Garda, the paramilitary wing of the radical nationalist Jobbik party, has said it will stage a demonstration and march through the village on Saturday.

The local Roma community has decided to keep their children at home during the week.

Police, who have the power to decide on such grounds as whether a gathering will disrupt traffic, refused to allow the march, but gave permission for a gathering.

The Garda said it would demonstrate because of a recent rise in thefts and rowdiness in the village, which they insist is owing to the local Roma community.

Ivan, with a population of 1,400, has a Roma community of 270 people, including 60 who are school-age.

"If the Garda plans to march in Ivan, all Roma will take their children out of school altogether," head of the local Roma minority council Tibor Vas told the paper.

Last week, the Garda held a recruiting event in the village, attended by about a hundred people.

The mayor of the village said that no one had invited the Garda to the village, but few residents have protested against its presence.

Jobbik registered "Magyar Garda" in June 2007 as a "cultural organisation" to "prepare youth spiritually and physically for extraordinary situations when it might be necessary to mobilise the people."

A Budapest court of first instance recently gave a ruling banning the organisation, a decision which the Magyar Garda is appealing against.

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