"I once bought a phone that turned out to have been stolen. The local policeman spoke to me as if I were a dog. And so I decided that maybe I could become a policeman - one who wouldn't speak to people like that," says Róbert, who is participating in the BM's uniformed services camp for young Roma. With dedication and some luck, this young man could well prove that Roma can hold their own in the uniformed services alongside the ethnically "Hungarian" majority. Some of them may even go further than prejudiced, racist "specialists".

Perhaps the most important aspect of the week-long camp was the opportunity for the participants to meet officers who identify themselves as Roma. There are no official data on how many Roma are serving in the 40,000-strong police force, and such figures would be illegal under the Data Protection Law. Neither the BM's equal opportunities officer nor the minorities spokesman for National Police Headquarters (ORFK) were prepared even to make an estimate. But some of their colleagues ventured that 50-200 of the 10,000 policeman serving in Budapest may be of Roma origins, although fewer would be open about their ethnic background.

The BM's initiative might seem rather modest: if all 40 camp participants were to join the police, this would only raise the proportion of Roma in the force by one tenth of a percent. But the camp underlines the BM's determination to make sure that the country's largest and most deprived ethnic group should not be the "victims" of identity checks and security measures, but should take on a public role. The participants were chosen from amongst 80 applicants on the basis of their academic results, their social deprivation and their aptitude for a policing career, according to the BM.

Szilvia Sipos, for example, is keen to attend the Police Officers' College, and her fiancé is encouraging her in her ambition to become a detective. Róbert wants to become a mounted policeman, whilst Zoltán wants to support his family. "I have two trades, I've been looking for work, but in Szabolcs country people are only interested in the fact that I'm a gypsy," he said.