PHOTOS: Huge protest in Budapest downtown against Orbán cabinet, MP Hadházy calls for obstructing traffic

If the government refuses to acknowledge tens of thousands demanding something for weeks, then civil disobedience is needed to express that demand, independent lawmaker Ákos Hadházy said in downtown Budapest on Tuesday.

MP Hadházy: assembly and transparency amendments must be withdrawn

Addressing a demonstration demanding the withdrawal of an amendment to the assembly law and the bill on the transparency of public life, Hadházy said “there’s no better explanation for why we had to protest on the bridge and why every week we have to march in a way that we disrupt traffic as much as we can.”

“This is our job again today,” he said, adding that they wanted to disrupt traffic so that “the powers that be can’t silence our will”.

We won’t stop, Hadházy warned:

“There’s a chance for there to be real civil disobedience, disruption … and a shutdown of the country, but for that we have to feel our own strength first,” the MP said, adding that the demonstrations of the past weeks had been “very good” in serving that purpose.

They will continue to protest

Hadházy said the Tuesday protests would continue throughout the summer, adding that “we can’t stop … since they haven’t withdrawn the techno-fascist law or the law on making [the operation of NGOs] impossible.”

He said it was because of the protests that parliament had held off on passing the law on the transparency of public life and that “in the recent weeks and months, the opposition is finally talking about how the powers that be may rig the election even more than before”.