Tear gas, breaking of barriers: teacher and student protesters scuffle with police – VIDEO
A demonstration was held in Budapest on Monday in protest against draft legislation changing the employment status of teachers.
Protesters marched from downtown Kálvin Square to the building of the interior ministry chanting slogans such as “The status law is revenge law”, “General strike”, “Pintér resign” referring to the interior minister, and “police state is no rule of law”.
In front of the interior ministry on Roosevelt Square, Erzsébet Nagy of teachers’ union PDSZ called on the government to withdraw the draft, “as it aims not to improve education but to discipline teachers”.
Instead, the government should come up with legislation in line with its commitments to the European Union during negotiations on accessing its recovery and resilience funding, “which would improve public education and money would also flow in”, Nagy said.
Nagy noted that “all the large groups of the European Parliament” had turned to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a letter, asking that the EC put pressure on the government to withdraw the legislation.
After the demonstration in front of the ministry, some demonstrators marched to the prime minister’s office in the Castle District.
Protesters attempted to dismantle the cordon around Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s residence, but were prevented by police. Several people were taken away and tear gas was fired.
The crowd was repeatedly pushed against the police cordon and the cordon. “Orbán is a Russian glove puppet”, “Orbán, Lázár, Habony, disgusting snot”, “down with the police state”, “This is not child protection”, they chanted.
The Budapest police headquarters said late on Monday that an unregistered protest had been held at the prime minister’s office where many of the protesters acted aggressively with police who used tear gas against them.
The demonstration ended at 9 PM, Telex reported.
As we wrote earlier on Monday, opposition Párbeszéd also held a protest in front of the ministry. Details: Sit-in protest against the status law in front of the Ministry of Interior
Source: MTI