Jobbik lawmaker denies claims that the party stigmatises Roma and gays

The deputy leader of the radical nationalist Jobbik party has rejected charges that the party stigmatises Roma and gays.

Tamás Sneider at a news conference on Monday was asked about Jobbik’s attitudes to gays, Roma and Jews. He said the party counted on everyone’s vote, and in the 2014 general election all sorts of people made up the Jobbik vote, including “lots and lots of Gypsies and other groups”.

He insisted that the party did not preoccupy itself with the sexual identity of people who turned up at voting booths.

Asked about the Pride march and whether it should be banned, he said that if a public scandal arose, then certain restrictions may be considered, but otherwise the law on public assembly allowed the march to go ahead.

Sneider said that no kind of disparaging statement had been made by Jobbik concerning Roma and gays. “The fact that

Jobbik talks about certain social groups in other ways is a normal part of the policy of a people’s party;

but our programme has not changed,” he said.

Asked about a decision by parliament’s national security committee to hear László Toroczkai, Jobbik’s deputy chairman and the founder of the controversial Sixty-Four Counties Youth Movement, he said the approaching election campaign was the real reason for the decision to hold the hearing.

The Jobbik politician was also asked about press reports that two Jobbik sports entrepreneurs maintained an offshore company in Malta. He said that as far as he knew, only a small amount of money flowed into the company’s coffers, and

the company had only been established there because it had been impossible to set it up in Hungary.

He added that not all offshore companies were engaged in theft.

Source: MTI