EUJS condemns Hungarian MP Marton Gyongyosi for his outrageous Anti-Semitic and racist remarks

Marton Gyongyosi, MP of the Jobbik party in Hungary called for the  Hungarian government to “count the Jews and to make a list of them sitting in Parliament and in the government” on 27. October 2012. He also stated that they present a national security risk and threat. In relation to the Israel-Gaza conflict, he said: “It is high time to assess how many MPs and government members are of Jewish origin, and who presents a national security risk to Hungary,” .

After his remarks, none of the Hungarian MPs appeared shocked or upset. The Speaker of the House did not mute Gyongyosi’s microphone and did not discipline him either; in fact his remarks received a gentle applause.The office of the government’s spokesman released a statement this morning saying that the government “takes the strictest possible action against every form of racism and anti-Semitic behaviour, and does everything in order to ensure that malicious voices incompatible with European norms are driven back.”

Today, some Hungarian politicians are wearing the Yellow Star in the Parliament. The “Democratic Coalition“ announced that they are going to ask the Prosecutor’s Office to initiate the dissolution of the Jobbik party from the Hungarian Parliament. The European Union of Jewish Students condemns Hungarian MP Marton Gyongyosi and his party Jobbik for their outrageous Anti-Semitic and racist remarks. His proposal aims to bring back  the anti-Jewish laws by Pal Teleki (Prime Minister of Hungary in the 1920s), based on which hundreds of thousands were registered and murdered between 1944-1945. It is a moral duty for every representative of the Parliament to personally refuse these discriminative statements of Marton Gyongyosi, and furthermore the Parliament must take measures to ensure Gyongyosi’s accountability.