Former European Parliament lawmaker Jozsef Szajer, who was Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s strongest voice in Brussels, on Wednesday resigned from the ruling Fidesz party as more details emerged of how he fled a gay sex party in the Belgian capital by clambering down a gutter.
The affair is an embarrassment to Orban, a right-wing nationalist whose party espouses its view of traditional Christian and family values, and has campaigned against the nation’s LGBT community.
Orban told Hungary’s Magyar Nemzet newspaper that Szajer’s actions were “indefensible.”
Photo: AFP
“He took the only appropriate decision when he apologized and resigned from his position as member of the European Parliament and left Fidesz,” Orban said.
Police in Belgium, where gay sex and marriage, as well as sex parties between consenting adults, are legal, broke up the party on Friday last week because it was breaking COVID-19 lockdown regulations.
“We don’t sit around drinking tea. People are here for sex,” party organizer David Manzheley said at his apartment in central Brussels.
Reuters had not been able to reach Szajer for comment.
Szajer was a founding member of Fidesz and an ally of Orban for more than 30 years.
In Brussels, he was the party’s leading force in the European Parliament and he had an instrumental role in rewriting Hungary’s constitution after Orban won an election in 2010.
He resigned from the European Parliament on Sunday, citing unspecified moral reasons. He said he regretted having broken Belgium’s lockdown regulations.
Manzheley said that 30 people were at the party last Friday, many fewer than the regular 100 or so. He did not know everyone there, but recognized Szajer subsequently, he said.
Guests at his parties would undress on arrival, some of them donning fetish gear, he said, showing a Reuters correspondent the flashing lights he puts up for his gatherings.
“We have Christmas coming. People are thirsty for meetings... It is absolutely normal that guys in the gay community are going to be searching for solutions to meet. Yes, he [Szajer] was present, like many other politicians from different countries.”
Manzheley said that he had not been charged and complained of rough treatment by police officers.
The incident has caused a scandal in Hungary and political analysts said it could have implications for Orban.
It comes at a sensitive time. Hungary, along with Poland, is in dispute with the EU over linking funds from its budget and recovery fund to the rule of law. The EU is investigating both governments for undermining the independence of their judiciaries and media.
The two nations are blocking about 1.8 trillion euros (US$2.2 trillion) of EU funds, including hundreds of billions due to be disbursed to help pull the bloc out of a double-dip recession caused by a second wave of COVID-19.
Orban has also clashed with the EU over his nation’s policy on refugees and migrants.
“The actions of our fellow deputy, Jozsef Szajer, are incompatible with the values of our political family,” the Magyar Nemzet quoted Orban as saying.
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
RSS