Jewish congress proposes anti-racism legislation

The Hungarian Jewish Congress proposed a law against racism and hatred, in a document adopted on Sunday.

At their conference in Budapest, the organisation that was established last November, urged deputies to put their political division aside and bring a law against hatred, and, if necessary, amend the constitution, so that "those who hate should not feel this homeland theirs so much".

In Hungary there is no legislation against such behaviour, moreover, the courts do not even realise the real social danger of such deeds, the document said.

The congress requested the mayors and the schoolmasters of the country to stand up against racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism.

In the document, delegates from 47 Hungarian Jewish organisations agreed that the number of those who stir open hatred in Hungary has risen recently, and this "is a threat that can lead to the final deprivation of social peace" in the country.

During the Holocaust the Hungarian state "took part as a co-culprit in the murder of 500,000 Hungarian Jews", the document stated.

At that time "the increasingly radical and brutal anti-Semitic common talk lead to the point that parliament, with the support of the majority of the people, adopted the anti-Jewish laws, and then the great majority of the people watched insensibly the deportation of the Jews from the rural areas, the putting the Jewry of Budapest into ghettos, and murdering them," the document said.

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