BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Over 1,000 protesters, many from Hungary’s Roma community, held a demonstration in the capital Budapest on Saturday to call for the resignation of a prominent government minister over inflammatory comments that many of those present said they saw as racist.
The demonstrators gathered at the offices of János Lázár, a key minister within the right-wing populist government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. They demanded an apology from Lázár for his comments and that he step down.
“Unfortunately, we have always been made to feel that we are considered second-class citizens,” said one demonstrator, István Soltész, a member of the Roma community who traveled from southern Hungary to attend the protest.
“Many of us also played our part in the world wars, in revolutions, in the construction of the country. But we were always just humiliated,” he continued.
Hungary’s Roma population, which some estimates put as high as around 1 million or more than 10% of the country’s total, represent the largest but most marginalized minority. The Roma have traditionally faced poverty, systemic discrimination, segregation and occasional racial violence.
Speaking to supporters during a community forum earlier this month, Lázár inflamed tensions when he described the Roma — also known as Gypsies, a term some consider offensive — as being a labor “reserve” which could help alleviate Hungary’s chronic labor shortage by performing work considered undesirable by the Hungarian ethnic majority.
“If there are no migrants, and someone has to clean the toilet on intercity trains, then we must tap into our internal reserves,” Lázár said, referencing Hungary’s strict opposition to immigration. “Hungarian voters do not show up with great zeal to clean someone else’s (expletive) toilets, so the internal reserve is Gypsies in Hungary. This is the reality.”
Lázár’s comments sparked a heavy backlash and raised concerns within the government that they could disillusion Roma voters, usually a reliable voting bloc for Orbán’s Fidesz party, only 10 weeks ahead of elections scheduled for April 12.
Some prominent Roma leaders and celebrities voiced their anger over the comments on social media, and a group of Roma activists and protesters disrupted another forum held by Lázár this week, demanding his resignation. Lázár has given a public apology, though he said his statements had been misinterpreted.
Many critics were angered that Lázár had made a distinction between Roma and Hungarians, suggesting that the minority was not a full-fledged member of the nation. Others took issue with the inference that the Roma ought to perform undesirable, low-paying work.
The governing Fidesz party has sought to quell the tensions raised by Lázár’s comments, and blamed its opposition rival, the center-right Tisza party, of stoking division between Roma and non-Roma Hungarians.
The head of Tisza and its candidate for prime minister, Péter Magyar, has condemned Lázár’s comments. Tisza holds a solid lead over Fidesz in most independent polls, and the election is expected to be the most serious challenge to Orbán’s power since he took office in 2010.
At the protest on Saturday, where many held Romani flags and toilet brushes in reference to Lázár’s statements, István Szilvási, a Roma musician, said the comments had “deeply offended the patriotism” of Hungary’s Roma.
“It has deeply offended us in our humanity, it has offended our children, our mothers, our fathers, our ancestors, our culture and our future,” he said. “Lázár won’t resign, the government won’t resign, but it’s okay. On April 12, however, we will know for whom we should cast our vote.”