Roma plan protest over divided school in C Hungary

The Roma Civil Rights Group of Jászság will protest outside the Móra Ferenc Primary School in Jászladány on January 19 against a ban on teachers and pupils of the council-run school from a corridor leading to the cafeteria, where the classrooms of a private school are held. In winter the dining room can only be reached by going outside the building.

The building of the local school was divided in two in 2002 when parents of the non-Roma children set up a foundation to operate a separate school. One half the building now hosts that private school attended by mostly non-Roma children.

The Roma Civil Rights Group is planning a tour of 14 municipalities to urge Roma residents to join forces. The group intends to stage a peace procession to Parliament to present an account of the tour to the President or the Prime Minister.

Hungary's EU accession has not produced any essential positive change in the life of Roma, according to a study by the European Comparative Minority Researchers Public Foundation. The authors of the study, István Kemény, Ernő Kállai, Gabriella Lengyel, Gábor Kertész and others, say Roma have to live with grave problems inherited from the past. They note that several initiatives of the Gyurcsány cabinet have collapsed, including projects to close Roma ghettoes.

The above story is just one of more than two dozen published today by Hungary Around the Clock, the most comprehensive source of daily English-language news about Hungary. For a free trial of HATC, click here. Hungarian news sources include Népszabadság; Magyar Hírlap; Világgazdaság; Napi Gazdaság; Magyar Nemzet; Népszava; Kossuth Rádió news and Hungarian television's nightly news broadcast.

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