OVER 1,000 protesters, many from Hungary’s Roma community, rallied in Budapest on Saturday to call for the resignation of a prominent minister in the far-right government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The demonstrators gathered at the offices of Janos Lazar after he told supporters last month that the Roma were a “reserve” that could help alleviate Hungary’s chronic labour shortage.

“If there are no migrants and someone has to clean the toilet on intercity trains, then we must tap into our internal reserves,” Mr Lazar said.

“Hungarian voters do not show up with great zeal to clean someone else’s fucking toilets, so the internal reserve is Gypsies in Hungary. This is the reality.”

As well as calling on the minister to step down, the protesters, many holding Romani flags and toilet brushes, also demanded that he apologise for his comments.

Roma musician Istvan Szilvasi said Mr Lazar had “deeply offended us in our humanity … our children, our mothers, our fathers, our ancestors, our culture and our future.”

“Lazar won’t resign. The government won’t resign. But it’s OK. On April 12, however, we will know for whom we should cast our vote.”

Istvan Soltesz, a member of the Roma community who travelled from southern Hungary to attend the protest, said: “Unfortunately, we have always been made to feel that we are considered second-class citizens.

“Many of us also played our part in the world wars, in revolutions, in the construction of the country. But we were always just humiliated.”