PO Box 73620, 509 St. Clair Ave. West
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AUGUST 20, 2008
Wife, Son of Roma Refugee In Hiding Make Youtube Plea to Canadian Justice Minister
TORONTO – After months of unsuccessful attempts to obtain a meeting with Canadian Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, Erika Horvath and her 13-year-old son, Adam, have made the rather unusual move of recording a personal youtube plea in an effort to get a response (available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPSKyU5t7h4)
The meeting would be to discuss the case of Roma refugee Adolf Horvath, a husband and father who disappeared in mid-March, fearing extradition to the country that Canada had found he needed protection from, Hungary. The Horvath family, which has experienced severe anti-Roma racism in their homeland, as well as physical violence at the hands of skinheads and national police forces, came to Canada as refugees in 1999.
“We have written to Mr. Nicholson so many times, I have called his office, we even went to Niagara Falls and tried to set up a meeting there,” says Erika. (Video of that trip is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-S_yvLC2Cg&feature=related)
“They told me that I had to live in the area to get a meeting with him, So what, now I have to move to Niagara Falls? Why can’t I get a meeting? We have so much evidence of my husband’s innocence, and it looks like the previous Justice Minister just ignored it in deciding to send my husband back to Hungary.”
The Horvath case has raised a number of eyebrows since he was found in 2004 to be a person in need of protection based on the life-threatening persecution he experienced in Hungary. Indeed, a Pre-Removal Risk Assessment Officer (PRRA) concluded: “Given the applicant’s past experiences with the police and judicial system, I am satisfied that state protection would not be forthcoming to this particular applicant.”
Despite this finding, which technically became the opinion of then Immigration Minister Monte Solberg, the minister was asked for a new opinion by then Justice Minister Victor Toews once the Hungarian extradition request was made. Although only 16 months had passed since the PRRA finding, Solberg’s new opinion was completely different, with nothing to show why, suddenly, it would be considered safe to forcibly return Mr. Horvath.
The case is also complicated by the fact that the two complainants in the case against Mr. Horvath recanted their allegations almost ten years ago in a Hungarian court proceeding, leading Horvath and his supporters to ask how the case could have gotten as far as it has in Canada.
Erika and Adam Horvath wish to speak with Nicholson because they feel a grave mistake has been made in committing Mr. Horvath to extradition.
“We have news reports, expert human rights reports, all kinds of things that show that this extradition is dangerous for my husband,” says Erika. “Why can’t they just meet with us and see that a big mistake has been made? Is it because they don’t want to embarrass the Hungarian government because they are a NATO partner?”
A year after Mr. Solberg’s opinion that state protection for a Roma like Mr. Horvath was adequate, the United Nations Committee Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment, in its concluding observations on Hungary released February 6, 2007, concluded, “The Committee is deeply concerned at reports of a disproportionately high number of the Roma in prisons and ill-treatment of and discrimination against the Roma by law enforcement officials, especially the police.”
Amnesty International points out in an assessment of anti-Roma discrimination in Europe released October 25, 2007, Roma are “often the victims of torture or other ill-treatment by law enforcement officers across the region. Roma were also [in the previous year] the victims of racist attacks during which they were not adequately protected by the police. The authorities in many countries failed to fulfil their domestic and international obligations towards the Roma community.”
Canada claims the presence of monitoring bodies would prevent harm from coming to Mr. Horvath, but such bodies are not in the physical jail with detainees, and can only respond once a complaint has been made. They cannot prevent harm from coming to an individual who has already been targetted.
Mr. Horvath, who was repeatedly a target of attacks (including a near-fatal stabbing witnessed by his wife and young son) before coming to Canada, would face additional risk now, supporters believe, given the high profile of his case. Indeed, web coverage of his case has drawn vicious anti-Roma and anti-Horvath comments on right-wing websites in Hungary.
When a Canadian Press article outlining Horvath’s plight was posted on the Hungarian website http://www.kuruc.info, scores of hateful and racist screeds aimed at Horvath and his family were posted.
Referring to Horvath as “an atrociously filthy Hungarian Roma-Gypsy killer,” the website features dozens of references that are insulting to Roma, including a shot at Canadian Press reporter who is characterized as a “racialist, Gypsy sympathizer.”
Various writers describe Roma as “atrociously filthy creatures” and, in one chilling comment, predict a time when vengeance is likely to be wreaked upon the Roma. “I have no future without my Dad. I cannot live without him. If he goes to Hungary, he might be killed and I do not want that,” 13-year-old Adam Horvath is quoted as saying, drawing this chilling response: “Well, yes, this is a shameless brazen lie and an example of the humbling, filthy Gypsy mendacity that discredits Hungary 100%. These are the lies that seriously humble and discredit our home country for which we will act as we have to act when the pendulum will swing backwards, and our time will come.”
Erika Horvath has collected scores of recent news stories from Hungary, as well as across Europe, illustrating the ongoing deterioration of human rights faced by the Roma, from proposed finger printing in Italy to physical attacks and broad daylight murders and home invasions against Roma in Hungary.
On July 21, for example, Hungarian press reported that about 30 gunfire shots were aimed at Roma houses at 12:30 am. “Local Romas have asked for police protection,” the report states, but the report later notes that in a similar anti-Roma incident in June, a Roma family was forcibly removed from the village of Galgagyörk by at least 30 members of the right-wing Hungarian Guards “with a police presence.”
On July 18, the Hungarian news outlet Magyar Nemzet reported in an article entitled “Proper Action? They forced the family to get down on their knees for hours,” that armed police commando units stormed into the homes of a number of Roma families in Soroksar and that “weapons were aimed at kids, women, ill individuals, and seniors and forced them to kneel down for hours with their hands up in the yard. According to the Budapest Police Headquarters the police response was appropriate.” The commandos did not say what they were looking for nor did they provide a search warrant.
“How can they say it is safe for my husband to go back? And if he is found and forced to go back, we would want to be with him, he is our life, so we would be exposed to this discrimination and violence too,” Erika says. “All of this could be solved if the Justice Minister contacted his counterpart in Hungary and asked about, for example, the fact that this whole case is based on two individuals, the alleged victims, who recanted their evidence in open court almost ten years ago.”
Erika and her son have been joined in a series of vigils for the past five months in Niagara Falls, at the Hungarian Consulate in Toronto, and outside the offices of various MPs. She vows they will continue to demonstrate until the extradition case is dropped.
“I am not a political person. I just want us to live our life in peace, and we really don’t understand why the Canadian government would allow its courts to be used by the Hungarians to persecute my husband.”
Refugee rights organizations are similarly concerned, and in May, the Canadian Council for Refugees passed the following resolution:
WHEREAS:
2. In some cases the extradition request seems to be based on evidence that may be motivated by racism;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the CCR ask the Government of Canada to give full respect to obligations under the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the Convention Against Torture, and not to proceed with extradition requests against Protected Persons unless status has been vacated or extradition would be justified under the Conventions.”
More information, or to arrange an interview with Erika and Adam, (416) 651-5800 ext. 1.
Those who wish to support the Horvath family are being asked to contact Nicholson’s office and ask that he meet with the family as a first step towards ending the extradition. His office can be reached at (613) 995-1547, email: Nichor@…
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