Anti-Semitic demonstration banned in Budapest

Bikers’ rally, protested by Jewish groups as a ‘call to repeat’ Auschwitz, was set to coincide with Holocaust commemoration

9 April 2013, 8:51 am

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Budapest, the Danube river and the Hungarian parliament, as seen through a window of the Fishermen's Bastion. (photo credit: Dror Garti/Flash90)

BUDAPEST, Hungary (JTA) — Hungary banned an anti-Semitic demonstration planned for the same day as a Holocaust memorial march.

An April 21 demonstration in Budapest by bikers called “Give gas” was banned on Monday. The annual March for Life Holocaust commemoration and anti-racist demonstration is scheduled to be held on the same day in Budapest, the Hungarian capital.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban had called for cancellation of the bikers’ rally following protests by several civil groups and opposition parties, as well as Hungary’s umbrella Jewish organization, Mazsihisz.

In a statement, Mazsihisz said the counter rally “unequivocally refers to the tortuous deaths of more than 400,000 of our compatriots killed in Auschwitz with poisonous gas and is a call to repeat these harrowing deeds.”