Hădăreni riots

The 1993 Hădăreni riots was an ethnic conflict in the village of Hădăreni, Mureş County, Romania, involving Romanians and Hungarians on one side and Roma people on the other side.

The riots

In September 1993, a group of a dozen Romanians attacked four Roma, one of which 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. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE6D8133AF934A15753C1A965958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all "Hadareni Journal; Death Is a Neighbor, and the Gypsies Are Terrified"] , in "New York Times", October 27, 1993]

Afterwards, 13 houses belonging of the Roma people were burnt down and an additional four were damaged. Most of the 130 Roma inhabitants of the village fled.

The trial

The European Court of Human Rights decided that the Romanians have to pay 238,000€ compensations 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 of houses on fire and then they 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 of a fair trial. [ [http://www.bbc.co.uk/romanian/news/story/2005/07/050712_echr_hadareni.shtml "Decizia Curţii Drepturilor Omului în dosarul Hădăreni"] , BBC, 12 July 2005]

References