The Hungarian Parliament has passed a bill banning the display for non-educational purposes of the Nazi swastika and several other political symbols.
The resolution, passed last week in a 130-73 vote with 23 abstentions, aims to limit the display and use of insignia associated with autocracy.
Also included in the ban are the SS badge, the arrow cross of the wartime Hungarian fascists, and the Communist symbols, the hammer and sickle and the red star.
Opposition members of Parliament voted against the bill because they did not agree with banning the red star, as it is used in many different states and flags.
Furthermore, the red star is accepted in Western Europe as a broad symbol for the political left, although that is not the case in Hungary.
Those who distribute, display or use in public these insignia could be punished by up to a year in prison or by a fine.
Exceptions to the ban were made for uses or displays done for the purposes of education, science, art or providing historical information.
Impetus for the new bill came out of a demonstration of skinheads last October in front of the Parliament building on the anniversary of the 1956 revolution against the Communists.
The Hungarian police came under criticism because they failed to remove from the square young skinheads who wore ultra-rightist SS symbols.
Hungary’s efforts to combat neo-Nazism as well as its sensitivity to the victims of Nazism was also demonstrated this week during commemorations here of Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Thousands of young people marked the day with a torchlight procession Sunday in Budapest.
Afterward, a unique commemoration was held at the Madach Theater, attended by Parliament Speaker Gyorgy Szabad, who is Jewish, several government and church leaders, party and social organization officials, foreign diplomats and leaders and members of the Hungarian Jewish community.
The Israeli ambassador to Hungary, David Kraus, also attended. In his speech he warned that “the shadow of fear and distress is still cast upon the present and the future.”
Tribute was also paid to those non-Jews who had risked their lives sheltering those persecuted.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
