Budapest  - Several thousand mourners gathered in a Hungarian village on Tuesday for the funeral of a Roma father and son who were gunned down the previous week as they fled their burning home.

Csorba Csaba, 27, and his five-year-old son were shot with hunting rifles before dawn on Monday, February 23. It is suspected that the family home in Tatarszentgyorgy, 40 kilometres south-east of the capital Budapest, was first set ablaze with petrol bombs.

Although the motive for and precise details of the attack have not been proven, it is widely assumed to have been racially motivated and the case has become a symbol of rising racial tension surrounding Hungary's Roma minority.

The funeral was attended by famous Hungarian musicians and actors, as well as civil rights activists and politicians. Traditional funeral music was provided at the graveside by 35 members of a popular Gypsy orchestra.

"We stand here in shame and ask the mourning family for forgiveness," the Methodist pastor Gabor Ivanyi said in a speech calling for Roma inclusion. "It is not they who must fit in; it is we who must accept them."

The Hungarian actor and film director Robert Koltai, whose forthcoming film "Magic Boys" will star American actor Michael Madsen, was among the mourners on the grey Hungarian afternoon.

"I couldn't not come. What happened is horrendous - everyone should be here," Koltai told the news agency MTI.

"I only trust that these events mark the crossing of a line, and warn us that things cannot go on like this," he added.

An estimated 3,000 Roma and other mourners gathered in and around the cemetery. Over 100 police officers stood guard, and the occasion passed without disturbance.

Minister for Social Affairs Erika Szucs represented Hungary's socialist government, while the head of the National Gypsy Council, Orban Kolompar, was among numerous leaders of Roma organisations.

In December, 2007, Tatarszentgyorgy was the scene of a rally by the extreme-right paramilitary Hungarian Guard, which was campaigning against what it calls "Gypsy crime."

A Budapest court last December ordered the controversial organisation to be disbandded, with the court citing speeches and intimidation at the rally that violated of the human rights of local Roma residents.

However, the ruling is subject to appeal and the organisation continues to hold rallies, including one in Budapest following the fatal stabbing of the Romanian handball international Marian Cozma in February, in which all the suspects now on remand are Roma.

Cozma's murder and the public and media reaction to it marked a new and serious increase in the level of fear and mistrust amongst both the Roma, estimated to make up as much as seven per cent of Hungary's population of ten million, and the Hungarians who share towns and villages with them.

On Monday, the government announced that it plans to propose changes to Hungary's liberal constitution that would allow for restrictions on public "hate speech."

There have been 16 reported attacks on Roma homes in Hungary over the past year involving petrol bombs, guns and even hand grenades. (dpa)