Hungary questions Germany’s democratic standards in LGBT row

An aide to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán called into question Germany’s democratic standards on Thursday after a top German soccer club sacked a Hungarian coach for expressing anti-immigrant and anti-LGBT views.

The Foreign Ministry said it had summoned the German charge d’affaires to express shock over the dismissal on Tuesday of goalkeeping coach Zsolt Petry by Hertha Berlin.

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“Expressing your opinion cannot be punished under the rule of law,” Orbán’s chief of staff Gergely Gulyás told reporters, asserting that Petry’s dismissal reminded him of Nazi-era Germany’s “totalitarian regime”.

“I think this is outrageous, it is foremost Germany that has to answer whether it still upholds the rule of law,” he said.

A German foreign ministry spokesman said the comments by the Hungarian government were “in no way comprehensible to us”.

“The charge d’affaires communicated this to the Hungarian government in his conversation (at the ministry). We reject the references to National Socialism in the clearest terms,” said the spokesman.

Hertha said on Tuesday that while they were satisfied with the work of the former Hungary international, comments he made that were critical of LGBTQ people and immigrants went against the club’s positions on tolerance and diversity.