Hungarian government supports penal code amendment concerning child abuse

The government is ready to support an amendment to the penal code if stricter punishments are needed “to ensure the healthy physical and moral development of children”, Gergely Gulyás, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office, said at his regular weekly press briefing on Thursday.

The government is expecting recommendations from a new action group set up to review Hungary’s child protection system and led by ruling Fidesz group leader Mate Kocsis, Gulyás said.

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Concerning Gábor Kaleta, Hungary’s former ambassador to Peru, who has recently been sentenced to suspended imprisonment for owning child pornography, Gulyás said that the case was “disgusting and unacceptable”, which “calls for the strictest punishment”.

Concerning another topic, the government’s introducing tighter restrictions concerning the novel coronavirus epidemic “cannot be excluded”.

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Gergely Gulyás said that the number of Covid-19 cases was falling in Hungary, but added that “it is not so” in neighbouring countries.

“The borders are open and people can travel, but staying home is safer,” Gulyás said.

He argued that the minor clusters of infection that have recently formed in Hungary were in each case associated with people returning from abroad. “The goal is to keep the current good tendencies from reversing,” he said.

Source: MTI