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Jobbik wants Soviet monument removed from Budapest’s Liberty Square

Opposition Jobbik on Monday said it is submitting to parliament a draft resolution aimed at removing the Soviet Red Army monument from Budapest's Liberty Square.

With the approach of the October 23 national holiday marking Hungary’s 1956 anti-Soviet uprising, “Russia’s war in Ukraine and its gas blackmail of Europe”, it is worth raising the question of what the monument is doing in a square named after liberty, Jobbik parliamentary group leader Laszlo Gyorgy Lukacs told a press conference.

The monument, he said, “offends all of our sense of justice and makes a mockery of the memory of 1956 and Hungarians’ sense of freedom”.

Lukacs said that contrary to public opinion, there was nothing stopping Hungary from removing the monument from the square, arguing that there were no longer any Soviet soldiers buried in the country. He said the decision on where the monument should be moved to should be left up to historians.

He asked “parties that consider themselves right wing”, such as the ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance and opposition Mi Hazank, to support his party’s draft resolution.

“This is the chance for everyone to show from where they are or aren’t being dictated conditions and that for us Hungarian self-determination and independence is the most important argument and goal,” Lukacs said.

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