Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban this week banned a nationalist motorcycle club from interrupting the March of the Living, UPI reported.
Orban told the Hungarian Parliament on Monday he had instructed Minister of Interior Sandor Pinter to “ensure that it would be impossible to organize events of a political nature that may violate the marchers’ human dignity.”
The annual Holocaust Memorial Day event is planned for April 21 in Budapest, with tens of thousands of marchers marking the olocaust.
A week ago, the National-Hearted Motorcyclists announced over its Facebook page its plans to stage a counter-parade with the theme “Give Me Gas.”
Socialist Member of Parliament Pal Steiner described the biker group as an “openly anti-Semitic organization.”
PM Orban agreed that the biker group’s “gas” reference was “highly distasteful.”
“I categorically reject all such behavior,” he said, adding 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.”
Minister Pinter issued a statement that Budapest police would prevent the bikers’ demonstration “using all legislative means, since the time and route of the event as well as its provocative slogan offend every good-minded person.”
Orban’s conservative Fidesz party also condemned the biker group. Party whip MP Antal Rogan said the organization is “obviously motivated by provocative purposes.” He added that he “deeply condemns this discreditable behavior.”
According to the Jewish group Mazsihisz, the bikers are planning to ride through Budapest’s historic Jewish Quarter, past the Dohany Street Great Synagogue, which houses the Hungarian Jewish Museum.
Mazsihisz said the “Give Me Gas” slogan was “a call to repeat the atrocities,” and the bikers’ planned parade was an “intolerable, shameful attack.”