Jobbik claims candidate for European Parliament victim of police brutality

Radical right-wing Jobbik party called a weekend incident against its EP election head a “political conspiracy” at a press conference in Budapest on Tuesday.

Krisztina Morvai said police had assaulted her with batons and teargas during an anti-government demonstration on March 15, Hungary’s national holiday.

Morvai claimed that police had acted on superior political orders “to set an example: that’s what happens to those who take a stand for human rights, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. They wanted to demonstrate that nothing can stop them.”

Morvai said she had been called to Budapest’s downtown Saint Stephen’s Basilica where “demonstrators had been taken hostage by police” after a demonstration, of which the authorities had been duly notified. After a long bargain, the protesters were let to leave the site. Some hundred metres off, however, police attacked the peaceful crowd with teargas and batons, she said.

Morvai said she would press charges against police for violation of the right of assembly and assault in official capacity, and name law enforcement minister Tibor Draskovics and Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany as instigators.

Jobbik leader Gabor Vona qualified the incident as a political conspiracy.

Police said they had used teargas on Sunday evening against a group of demonstrators that had attacked a police line, and that Morvai had not been assaulted.