Authorities in Hungary have banned the planned 'Give Gas' demonstration by bikers who call themselves 'Goj' (the Yiddish word for 'non-Jew'). The event was planned to coincide with the annual March for Life, the official Hungarian Holocaust memorial. Budapest police said it would deploy “all legal means” to stop the rally by bikers, whose “provocative” name and timing is “an offense."
The Hungarian government also released a statement which stated Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had ordered Interior Minister Sándor Pintér to ensure that on the day of the Holocaust commemoration it would be "impossible to organize events of a political nature that may violate the marchers’ human dignity." Orbán said "the safety, undisturbed remembrance and human dignity of the participants of the March of the Living would be assured with all available means."
He added that he agreed that all attempts to disregard and even purposefully violate the dignity, history and pride of certain ethnic groups while insulting human dignity are not just performed in poor taste, but are deeply hurtful and contrary to the spirit of the Constitution. “I categorically reject all such behavior”, Orbán remonstrated.
Prior to that, Hungary's umbrella Jewish organization Mazsihisz called for the cancelation of the demonstration. In a statement, Mazsihisz said the bikers' rally “unequivocally refers to the tortuous deaths of more than 400,000 of our compatriots killed in Auschwitz with poisonous gas and is a call to repeat these harrowing deeds.”
The motorcade would have passed in front of the capital’s main synagogue.
The World Jewish Congress will hold its 14th Plenary Assembly in Budapest in May, in support of Hungarian Jews.
