09/04/2013 - Hungarian civil-rights groups marked Monday’s International Roma Day by warning that proposed changes to the country’s Equal Rights Act could open the door to cementing the segregation of gypsies in elementary schools.
Late last month, Hungary’s justice minister, Tibor Navracsics, introduced a bill in Parliament that would amend the equal rights law to say that “pursuing equal rights and social catching-up are first and foremost a state commitment” – adding the words “social catching-up.”
Rights groups said the new wording could enshrine in law an already existing practice of channeling Roma children into special-needs classes or separate grade schools originally created for children with learning disabilities regardless of their ethnic backgrounds.