They are on their own again, when some East Europeans are looking for scapegoats. Gypsies also were forbidden to drive cars that were in bad shape, and police were given special powers to search their homes. In explaining the reason for the edict, Major Frantisek Slobodnik said that crime was out of control and that the Gypsies were responsible. The Slovak parliament, sensing a public relations disaster, moved to quash the curfew, declaring it unconstitutional. But the government softened the blow by promising Slobodnik that police reinforcements would be sent to Spisske Podhradie.
Criminality is a cliche.
It's not the problem. In the Hungarian city of Eger, known as the country's skinhead capital, Gypsies staged a protest march earlier this month after a Gypsy youth was beaten into a coma by skinheads. It was the city's 25th assault on Gypsies since 1991. The several million Gypsies who live in Eastern Europe are descendants of Indians who migrated this far westward by the 15th century, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, and many have retained their nomadic ways. Even during communist times, many gypsies continued to move from place to place, defying borders and police.