Steven N.Opposition MPs prolonged debate in Parliament well past midnight on a social welfare law that began on 9:00am Wednesday morning, replacing each other from time to time to keep the filibuster going and prevent debate from formally closing. From the government, primarily MPs Bence Rétvári and Lőrinc Nacsa responded to the opposition’s speeches.
The amendment under discussion would rewrite a 1993 social welfare law in such a way that the state would only provide help to the poorest as a last resort, when family members, municipal government, and charitable organizations had already given up. The amendment also states that individuals themselves are primarily responsible for their own social welfare, an unprecedented shift in Hungarian law.
According to the amendment, families will have an obligation to help their relative, even if that person finds themselves in a difficult situation through no fault of their own. Before this, the law only spoke about the responsibility of one’s family in general terms.
The amendment to the law was hidden in an omnibus law over 160 pages long submitted by Zsolt Semjén and Sándor Pintér on Tuesday.
During the filibuster, Dialogue’s Tímea Szabó called the amendment to the law “Lex ‘You Will Die'” (Lex Megdöglesz), while Bence Tordai said that rewriting the law enshrines inhumanity into law. Péter Ungár from LMP wrote on Facebook that they had to speak up about stopping the state from withdrawing from the social welfare system.
With discussion still ongoing, the session was expected to last well into the night. Dialogue Member of Parliament András Jámbor told Telex that the goal of the filibuster was to get answers from the government, specifically why the law was being amended and what the government was hoping to achieve with it as a crisis approaches.
Jámbor stated that the amendment would brutally transform the social welfare system overnight. With no time limit given for debate, opposition MPs vowed to stay inside Parliament until Thursday morning if necessary. [Telex]
Nightmare on Orbán ut. continues. The regime’s family support “values” become clearer with each passing day. Orbán et al steal as much as possible to build their vulgar palaces in and out side of Hungary while throwing the poor, schools etc to the curb. Now might be a good time for readers to donate to Magyarországi Evangéliumi Testvérközösség as this Church actually helps the poor and/or those with disabilities. The former God Father of Orbán’s children and opponent of this regime, Rev. Iványi Gábor has a long history of speaking truth to power, let alone wonderful ethics. Either our host can supply link to donate and/or interested readers can google.
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Headline today: Russia criminalizes positive reporting about LGBTQ+ people. How long before Hungary follows with similar law?
Still more evidence of the so called “family values” promoted by a diverse group of authoritarians. In a different historical era, the 1930s, the nazi and communist regimes, as you no doubt know, outlawed same sex relationships etc. accompanied by burning “positive reporting” books. Terrible news today
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In the news today: “Forced adoption. As the war rages on, the Russian military has been taking Ukrainian children to Russia on a large scale, under the guise of vacation or adoption. Russian media confirm that. In one such media, the head of the Russian children’s rights organization herself admitted that she had recently adopted a child who comes from the city of Mariupol. In recent months, hundreds of children from occupied cities such as Mariupol have been reported to have been taken to Russia for a so-called holiday trip. But often this is followed by forced adoption by Russian families, which amounts to a form of deportation. In this way, Russia is violating international agreements on the prevention and punishment of genocide.”
Szijarto: Protect families … My friend Lavrov …
That sounds like a copy of the Nazi-German drive to “nationalize” children with “recognizable Aryan features” in the occupied Eastern territories, on the pretense of evacuating them from the war. Of course, people in the East had no idea of the horrors in Germany proper, and they quickly lost contact as the children were adopted by approved party-member families of the “right” persuation.
Objectively, the program probably saved many of them from dying at home, but it also caused a lot of complications after the war (and still does) when families search for their lost siblings. Thanks to dna testing, this has become much easier.
More terrible news and no protest from any of the “family values” authoritarians.