Viktória Mohácsi
Encyclopedia
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
politician of Roma ethnicity. Between 2004 and 2009 she was a Member of the European Parliament
Member of the European Parliament
A Member of the European Parliament is a person who has been elected to the European Parliament. The name of MEPs differ in different languages, with terms such as europarliamentarian or eurodeputy being common in Romance language-speaking areas.When the European Parliament was first established,...
, one of only a small caucus of Roma MEPs (another ethnic Romani member is Lívia Járóka
Lívia Járóka
Lívia Járóka is a Hungarian politician of Romani ethnicity. She is a Member of the European Parliament, elected as part of the Fidesz list in 2004...
). She was a member of the Alliance of Free Democrats
Alliance of Free Democrats
The Alliance of Free Democrats – Hungarian Liberal Party is a liberal party in Hungary, led since July 2010 by Viktor Szabadai . The SZDSZ is a member of the ELDR and of Liberal International...
, part of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party
European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party
The European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party is a European political party mainly active in the European Union, composed of 56 national-level liberal and liberal-democratic parties from across Europe...
). She replaced a party colleague, Gábor Demszky
Gábor Demszky
Gábor Demszky is a Hungarian politician, lawyer and sociologist by qualification. Demszky was the Mayor of Budapest from 1990 to 2010.- Biography :...
, on 1 December 2004. In the July 2009 European elections, she lost her seat.
In 2008 in Rome she was granted the "Premio Minerva" for her activity in defense of human rights of Roma.
On 21st October, Mohácsi, who has taken the lead in documenting violence toward the Roma in Hungary, received Human Rights First's 2010 annual award in New York.
The Movement for Desegregation Foundation led by the former European Parliament Member Viktória Mohácsi, the leading domestic monitor of anti-Roma attacks and hate crimes documented 68 attacks, of which 12 lead to death between January 2008 and June 2010.
Mohácsi attracted heavy criticism several times for indiscriminately defending Roma people even when they commit crimes. After the murder of handball player Marian Cozma
Marian Cozma
Marian Cozma was a Romanian handball player. He was born in Tei, Bucharest and died in Veszprém, Hungary after being attacked and stabbed in a nightclub fight...
by Roma men (see Veszprém stabbing
Veszprém stabbing
In the Veszprém stabbing of 8 February, 2009, a group of people stabbed three members of the MKB Veszprém handball team in a bar in Veszprém, Hungary, which caused the death of one of them, Marian Cozma.-Circumstances:...
) she commented on TV that "he must have provoked them". Péter Magyarády, the chairman of Cozma's handball club, confuted the assumption that Cozma made disparaging comments about the Roma. Mohácsi later apologized. In another interview she apparently found nothing wrong with Roma stealing street garbage bins, because "they know they can get money for them".