1993 Hădăreni riots
The 1993 Hădăreni riots was a pogrom in the village of Hădăreni, Mureş County, Romania, involving Romanians and Hungarians against Roma people on the other side; three Roma were murdered.
The riots
In September 1993, a group of a dozen Romanians attacked four Roma, one of whom killed a Romanian attacker with a knife before getting refuge in a house across the road. The Roma locked themselves in the house, while many of the Romanians and Hungarians of the village gathered and sprayed the house with gasoline before setting it on fire. Three Roma were lynched when trying to exit the house and one escaped.[1] The gesture of Romanian and Hungarian population was due to failures of the police. Dozens of Roma thefts from the majority population’s properties have been claimed in the previous period and never resolved by police (http://www.9am.ro/stiri-revista-presei/Social/16435/Bomba-Hadareni.html).
Afterwards, 13 houses belonging to the Roma people were burnt down and an additional four were damaged. Most of the 130 Roma inhabitants of the village fled.[1]
The trial
The European Court of Human Rights decided that the Romanians have to pay 238,000€ compensation to the group of Roma people who had their houses burnt. According to the European Court verdict, representatives of the Romanian Police participated in the setting the houses on fire and then tried to hide this. The court also decided that the ethnic origin of the people involved was an important factor in its outcome, and that the length of the trial (11 years) infringed their right to a fair trial.[2]
See also
References
- ^ a b "Hadareni Journal; Death Is a Neighbor, and the Gypsies Are Terrified", in New York Times, October 27, 1993
- ^ "Decizia Curţii Drepturilor Omului în dosarul Hădăreni", BBC, 12 July 2005