Jobbik party member resigns leadership positions after recording surfaces of anti-Semitic act
Published December 2, 2018
(JTA) — A leader of the extremist Jobbik Party in Hungary resigned his leadership positions following the release of a recording of an admission of an anti-Semitic act.
Jobbik deputy group leader and parliamentary notary Istvan Szavay resigned his positions on Thursday, Hungary Today reported, though he will remain a member of Parliament.
Szavay is heard on the recording admitting to verbally and physically assaulting a Jewish woman, though he claims she started it.
“She was yelling, ‘Nazis are stinking here,’ and I just knocked her out, dirty Jew, pakk, just like this,” he said on the recording.
He said he did not actually physically harm the woman.
Jobbik is a xenophobic movement that the World Jewish Congress has termed “an extremist party promoting hate.” It is Hungary’s second-largest party with 26 out of 199 seats in parliament.
