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Jobbik and the Magyar Garda march with torches aloft towards the Roma ghetto (Photo: Leigh Phillips)

The state of democracy in Hungary: 'The illness has advanced to a new stage'

by Leigh Phillips, HEJOSZALONTA & BUDAPEST,

A gypsy girl of maybe eight, nine years old holds onto her little brother tightly. Looking out over the chicken-wire fence at the end of their mud garden in the Roma ghetto in the village of Hejoszalonta, they stare at the around 600 members of Hungary's fascist party, Jobbik, and its paramilitary wing, the Magyar Garda, dressed in black or camouflage or just leather jackets, marching right past where they live with torches aloft and nationalist heavy metal music blasting.

An hour and a...

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Jobbik and the Magyar Garda march with torches aloft towards the Roma ghetto (Photo: Leigh Phillips)

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