Budapest - Right-wing extremists in Hungary who defy a court order banning the uniform of the Hungarian Guard paramilitary organization will be given 280 dollar fines under new legislation that went into effect on Thursday. The Hungarian Guard, the brainchild of the nationalist party Jobbik, lost an appeal against a dissolution order on July 2, but promptly relaunched itself as the New Hungarian Guard. Under the original order, police had found it difficult to enforce the ban.
Although found guilty in December 2008 for violating the human rights of ethnic Roma villagers a year earlier, the Guard has continued to campaign against so-called "gypsy crime".
One of Jobbik's three members of the European parliament wore the group's black-and-white uniform on his first day at work in Brussels a fortnight after the ban.
Jobbik's success in winning almost 15 per cent of the vote in the European Parliament elections in June followed a campaign on an anti-Roma, Eurosceptic ticket.
There was a tense stand off between local Roma and members of the Hungarian Guard in Sajobabony in eastern Hungary last week.
Only rapid police intervention prevented what looked set to become a pitched battle after local Roma reacted angrily to a Jobbik meeting in the town on November 14.
