Seeking Compassionate Haven

"In 2006, Gyula KIanto Sr. participated in the Roma elections for a position in the minority government.  This participation further publicized his ethnicity and role as a Roma activist.  In the applicants' apartment complex, their upstairs neighbour was a known Guardist (a street thug who dresses in traditional Hungarian Nazi colours and spreads fear).  The neighbour would shout racial slurs at them and send threatening letters.  He even broke their windows.  The applicants complained to the police but they refused to intervene."

This describes in small part the plight of a Roma family living in Hungary, exposed to human rights abuses on a regular basis.  Incidents such as the son of the applicant being confronted by three Hungarian racists threatening him, and when he said he would call police, one of them hauled out a police badge, saying "Complain all you want, but we will not investigate", before smashing a beer bottle in his face.

If this is not a powerful indictment of a wide-spread social malaise and institutionalized hate-mongering and racism in Hungary, it's hard to imagine what else might convince Canadian immigration authorities that this family does present as one the country should be quick to absorb as needful refugees from state negligence and socially abusive hardships.

The father, through his lawyer, described another scenario when he was attacked from behind on a subway, and no one came to his rescue.  "He complained to a police officer who smiled and declared that no one is attacked without prior provocation."  Violence against the Roma community appears to have the approval of general society in much of Europe.  The provocation is the fact that they are Roma.

Gyula Kanto, a self-admitted Roma civil-rights leader, came with his family - wife and son - to Canada in 2009, applying for refugee protection.  They described for immigration authorities the discrimination they suffered, including that Roma 'qualify' for only menial occupations.  Skinheads would routinely attack their son on his way to and from school.

"On August 26, 2009, Gyula Kanto Jr. was surrounded and verbally abused by a group of police officers at a bank machine.  They spoke with approval about a recent violent attack on Romanies by a group of skinheads.  One of the police officers said 'At least there is one less Roma in the country."  Would that kind of constant experience not represent a good enough reason to flee persecution?

The family, however, has been denied refugee status in Canada, after an Immigration and Refugee Board member ruled there is no 'legitimate fear of persecution' in their homeland.  A more perverse ruling under the circumstances can hardly be imagined.  All the more so when increasingly international attention is being called to the violence and murderous hate campaigns against Roma sweeping Europe.

So it makes it all the more puzzling that the Federal Court of Appeal brought down a decision signed by Justice Yves de Montigny in agreement with the Immigration and Refugee Board, that the Kanto family failed to establish a genuine fear of persecution, meriting them refugee protection in Canada.  The judge did note one error on the part of the board member assessment of the situation, however.

That Hungary's legislative intentions and efforts to combat discrimination do not appear to match its actions.