21.02.2014 The victims of the Rroma murders in Hungary

Verseck (2014) discusses the role of the bereaved families of the victims of the Rroma murders in Hungary. Éva Kóka is the widow of Jeno Kóka, a Rrom from Tiszalök, in North-Eastern Hungary. Kóka was brutally murdered in April 2009 by members of an extreme right-wing group, when he wanted to start his night shift at the local pharmacy factory. Immediately after the murder, the health of Kóka worsened significantly: “Éva Kóka broke together after the murder of her husband, her health deteriorated abruptly. She was unable to work, had to give up her position in a wood factory and moved in with her daughter.” The murders, Verseck states, are symptomatic of the institutionalised racism against Rroma in Hungary. A Hungarian minister is said to have known about substantial evidence that would have led to the arrest of the perpetrators, already back in 2009. But this evidence was purposively obliterated. In addition, the members the families of the six victims and the 55 people heavily injured people didn’t receive any redress or apology from the state until August 2013. On the 6th of August last year, four of the murderers involved were convicted, three of them to life imprisonments. Following the convictions, the Hungarian government promised the victims and survivors financial compensation. To date, they haven’t received anything. Many are seriously ill and are still living in severe poverty.