DK: Planned basic law amendment on private home protection restricts assembly right

The government’s constitutional amendment proposal on the protection of the home and private life in fact aims to restrict the right of assembly, an endeavour the Democratic Coalition (DK) will fight against, an MEP of the party said on Friday.

Speaking at a press conference, Péter Niedermüller reacted to remarks by Gergely Gulyás, head of the Prime Minister’s Office, who told Echo TV on Thursday that “it is now worth ending the era of staging demonstrations at private homes”.

If Gulyás’s words are incorporated into a new law, that will be a legislation that can be flexed as wished, Niedermüller said.

With such a law any demonstration could ultimately be banned, for instance one organised at Kossuth Square in front of Parliament, Niedermüller said, adding that only an individual would need to be found stating that the event would “disturb their private home”.

The proposed amendment “is a serious violation of democracy” and DK will fight against its implementation using all possible means, the MEP added.

In response to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán telling public Kossuth Radio on Friday morning that in a normal country there is room to express opinions, but this freedom should not extend to bothering people in their own homes, Niedermüller asked the question where could then demonstrations be organised in the future.

“Maybe at Szabadság Hill or a field in the mountains with no blocks of flats?” he said,

adding that it is the government’s policies rather than demonstrations that “bother Hungarian people at their homes”.

Source: MTI