Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban has condemned MEP Jozsef Szajer’s ‘unacceptable and indefensible’ behaviour after he was caught breaking lockdown rules at a male orgy in Brussels.
Szajer, a 59-year-old married father-of-one and a founding member of Hungary’s right-wing Fidesz party, was caught on Friday attending a sex party before shinning down a drainpipe in a failed escape attempt.
He tried to claim diplomatic immunity and was given a police caution before resigning from Orban’s anti-LGBT party after media in Brussels reported that the social conservative had attended the 25-person orgy.
Orban told the Magyar Nemzet newspaper that Szajer’s actions were ‘indefensible’ and went against the values of Fidesz’ political group, which portrays itself as a champion of traditional Christian values and families. Szajer is a founding member of Fidesz and has been an ally of Orban for more than 30 years.
In Brussels as a European deputy, Szajer was Fidesz’ leading force in the European parliament, and he had an instrumental role in rewriting Hungary’s constitution after Orban won elections in 2010.
The PM said: ‘The actions of our fellow deputy, Jozsef Szajer, are incompatible with the values of our political family. We will not forget nor repudiate his thirty years of work, but his deed is unacceptable and indefensible.
‘Following this, he took the only appropriate decision when he apologised and resigned from his position as member of the European Parliament and left Fidesz.’ The leader of Hungary’s opposition Momentum party had said the sex scandal showed the ‘total moral failure’ of Orban’s socially conservative Fidesz.
It comes at a difficult time for Hungary’s nationalist ruler, who is in a bitter dispute with the EU over rule-of-law criteria tied to the EU budget, and is tackling a worsening pandemic and recession at home.
The strongman describes his anti-migrant, anti-LGBT stance as ‘illiberal democracy’, while his critics accuse him of cracking down on civil liberties and suppressing the independence of Hungary’s press and judiciary.
Szajer attended the male orgy at a flat in an historic quarter known pre-lockdown for its gay bars, owned by 29-year-old doctoral student David Manzheley, who insists he does not know the Hungarian MEP and has suggested that he gatecrashed the party with some other diplomats.
Images reveal a dimly-lit flat with mattresses strewn on the floor, a table where a bottle of lubricant or hand sanitizer appears to be standing, and a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling.
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban today condemned MEP Jozsef Szajer’s ‘unacceptable and indefensible’ behaviour after he was caught breaking lockdown rules at a male orgy in Brussels
Images have revealed the inside of the Brussels flat where Hungarian MEP Jozsef Szajer was busted by police attending a male orgy on Friday night in breach of lockdown, forcing him to resign
Neighbours called police at 9.30pm on Friday to report an illegal gathering taking place inside this apartment block in Brussels’ gay bar district, before officers battered the door in (pictured centre)
The flat is owned by 29-year-old doctoral student David Manzheley, who claims not know Szajer – saying he only arranged for 10 friends to come over before word got around and gatecrashers turned up
The flat contains some basic pieces of furniture but few home comforts, with the only decorations being a single love-heart hanging above one of the mattresses, and some black netting and a glowing skull on one wall.
Meanwhile the entrance has been adorned with a mish-mash of late Halloween decorations and what appears to be a Valentine’s love heart, hanging just below a blood splatter and an image of a human skull.
Manzheley told Blikk that he had originally organised the party for 10 friends, but around twice that number ended up coming as word got around. He confirmed that the event had been a sex party, but strongly denied taking drugs after prosecutors said they had found ecstasy tablets in Szajer’s backpack.
‘I always invite a few friends to my parties, who in turn bring some friends along, and then we make it fun together. We talk a little, we have a drink – just like in a café,’ he told Belgian site HLN.
‘The only difference is that in the meantime we also have sex with each other. I don’t see what’s wrong with that.’ Manzheley said he tried to make the event as safe as possible by only inviting people who had already caught coronavirus, before things got out of hand.
Noise from the party prompted neighbours to call police around 9.30pm, before officers arrived to break up the gathering which is illegal under Belgian lockdown laws – whether attendees have had coronavirus or not.
Speaking about the moment officers arrived, Manzheley said: ‘The police broke the door on us without knocking. They were very rude, insulting us.
‘They demanded that we show them our IDs, yet how could we have handed over our IDs so quickly when we weren’t wearing our underpants?’
Szájer is understood to have slipped out a window and climbed down a drainpipe in an escape attempt that was foiled when a passerby alerted police.
He was soon stopped by officers who said his hands were bloody after the climb, and who also claimed to have found narcotics in a backpack he was carrying.
Szajer was not carrying any ID – which is frequently requested by police in Hungary – so police followed him back to his apartment where he showed his diplomatic passport and claimed immunity.
Two others at the party also claimed immunity, one with the initials DO who was born in 1977 and the other with initials PB, born in 1987, police said. They did not give any more details.
Szajer was charged with violating lockdown rules and drug possession, but the prosecution was halted due to his immunity. If the European Parliament lifts that immunity, he could face further action, Euronews reports.
He stepped down from his position on Sunday, before news of the party became public, saying only that ‘mental strain’ had forced him to step back from the frontlines of politics. But on Tuesday, as news of the party began circulating in Belgian media, he admitted he had attended and issued a full apology.
‘I was present,’ Szajer admitted, in a statement distributed by his conservative political group the EPP. ‘After the police asked for my identity – since I did not have ID on me – I declared that I was a MEP. The police continued the process and finally issued an official verbal warning and transported me home.’
He added: ‘I deeply regret violating the COVID restrictions, it was irresponsible on my part.’
In a statement to the Hungarian press, Szajer said: ‘A newspaper ran in the Belgian press today a story about a house party in Brussels on Friday that I was attending. After the police asked for my identity – because I didn’t have an ID card in my pocket – I declared that I was a Member of the European Parliament.
‘The police dealt with the case, gave me a verbal warning and brought me home. I didn’t use drugs, I offered to the police on the spot to have an official test done, but they didn’t.
‘Police said an ecstasy pill was found. It’s not mine, I don’t know who brought it or how. I made a statement to the police about this. I am sorry that I have violated the rules of assembly, it was irresponsible on my part, I will take the penalties for that.’
Earlier reports had suggested that Szajer attempted to flee the party out of a window and escape down a drainpipe, but he hurt himself in the process and was caught. Belgian media reported that he had initially tried to claim diplomatic immunity.
Diplomats were also said to have taken part in the secret party, which was on the first floor above a cafe, where drugs were also found. It is believed that all those involved were let off with a fine and a warning.
Fidesz called him ‘the best-known and most-recognised Hungarian member of the European Parliament’.
In his resignation statement, Szajer said it ‘has nothing to do with the current, animated policy debate taking place on the European level’ – a reference to the deadlock between Hungary and Brussels over its controversial veto along with Poland of the bloc’s long-term budget and coronavirus recovery fund.
Szajer, a Fidesz founding member, was one of the lead architects of Hungary’s new constitution in 2011, which was criticised by opponents for emblazoning conservative Christian ideology.
He had also served as a vice chair and chief whip of the EPP conservative grouping in the assembly, and as chairman of the Fidesz delegation, he was also in charge of the contact between his party and the group.
After Orban came to power in 2010 Szajer was put in charge of drafting a new constitution, which he said he partly wrote on an Apple iPad on the train between Brussels and Strasbourg.
The socially conservative text sparked controversy, including a definition of ‘the institution of marriage as between a man and a woman’ as well as ‘the basis of the family and national survival’.
In May, the party passed laws that mean transgender people will not longer be able to change their identities – defining a person’s gender by the number of chromosomes they were born with.
Fidesz openly opposes equal rights for gay people, and last month proposed amending the constitution in such a way as to guarantee that only heterosexual married couples will be able to adopt children.
The party is led by Orban, a self-styled strongman who has been Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010 and been rebuked by the EU for reforms which have concentrated power in his position.
The Brussels prosecutor’s office said a suspect identified by Szajer’s birth year and initials was arrested after a passer-by reported seeing a man ‘fleeing along the gutter’ after climbing through a window on Friday night
After Orban came to power in 2010 Szajer was put in charge of drafting a new constitution, which he said he partly wrote on an Apple iPad on the train between Brussels and Strasbourg. The text sparked controversy, including a definition of ‘the institution of marriage as between a man and a woman’ as well as ‘the basis of the family and national survival’
The EPP suspended the membership of the Fidesz party in the group in March 2019 amid controversy over Orban’s increasingly authoritarian rule and crackdown on independent press and NGOs.
Orban’s government plunged the bloc into a major political crisis after blocking a massive £1.65trillion emergency coronavirus rescue budget they claimed ‘blackmailed countries into accepting migrants’.
Last month Hungary blocked the 2021-2027 budget and the recovery plan, worth a combined 1.85 trillion euros (£1.65 trillion), because access to the funds would be conditional on respecting the rule of law.
Orban is against linking EU money and respect for the rule of law because they are under a formal EU process investigating them for suppressing dissent. If the link, introduced by EU leaders in July and strengthened by the European Parliament, remains, Hungary risks losing access to tens of billions of euros in EU funds.
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During the coronavirus crisis, Orban has passed legislation allowing him to bypass parliament and rule by decree. He has also launched anti-Semitic attacks on Jewish businessman George Soros, accusing him of being behind Europe’s migrant crisis, and has spoken out against LGBT people.
Belgium, once one of Europe’s coronavirus hotspots, went into a strict national lockdown on October 30 as Covid-19 cases and deaths soared to one of the highest rates in Europe.
All non-essential shops were closed, people were banned from socialising indoors unless in a three-person ‘bubble’, and gatherings outside were limited to four.
Those measures were eased slightly starting on Tuesday this week, but only so that retail shops could open. All other shops, including bars and restaurants, must remain shut while a curfew in Brussels remains in place.
Szajer’s resignation is the latest scandal to have hit Fidesz, with a Budapest court sentencing Fidesz member and former Hungarian ambassador to Peru Gabor Kaleta to a one-year suspended prison sentence and fineing him for possessing more than 19,000 sexually explicit images of minors.
In 2019, video was leaked of Fidesz politician Zsolt Borkai participating in an orgy on a yacht in the Adriatic Sea. Borkai, the mayor of a medium-sized city 70 miles from the capital of Budapest, was re-elected that month despite the scandal, and Fidesz said it considered the issue ‘a private matter.’
Viktor Orban: The Right-wing strongman who has reduced Hungary to authoritarianism by cracking down on press freedoms and restricting civil liberties
Viktor Orban is Hungary’s longest-serving premier, having ruled the eastern European country continuously since 2010
Orban was born in Székesfehérvár in May 1963, studying law before entering Hungarian politics in the wake of the 1989 Revolutions which swept through the former USSR at the end of the Cold War.
In the same year, he demanded the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary in a speech which shot him to national fame. As Hungary transitioned to democracy in 1990, Orban was elected to the country’s National Assembly and served as the leader of Fidesz’s parliamentary caucus until 1993. The party underwent a political shift under his leadership, away from its liberal and pro-European integration platform towards Right-wing nationalism.
Orban was appointed prime minister for the first time after the 1998 election. He was ejected from high office after losing the 2002 election to the Socialist Party, and became Leader of the Opposition for the period until his landslide election victory in 2010 — as the government fell out of favour with the public following the 2008 financial crisis.
Orban then formed a coalition with the Christian Democrats to gain a super-majority in the National Assembly, which he used to ram through major constitutional and legislative reforms.
Orban’s critics, who have included Hillary Clinton, Angela Merkel, and Jean-Claude Juncker, have accused him of pursuing anti-democratic reforms, cracking down on press freedoms, reducing the independence of the judiciary and central bank, cronyism, and amending the constitution to prevent amendments to Fidesz-backed legislation.
During the 2015 migrant crisis which rocked Europe, Orban ordered the erection of a Serbo-Hungarian barrier to block the entry of illegal migrants so that Hungary could register migrants arriving from Serbia. At the time, migrants were passing into Hungary from Serbia, which had a responsibility under the Dublin Regulation to register the migrants.
Orban has openly promoted the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, stating: ‘If Europe is not going to be populated by Europeans in the future and we take this as given, then we are speaking about an exchange of populations, to replace the population of Europeans with others.’ Writing about the EU’s immigration policy, Orban said: ‘Europe’s response is madness. We must acknowledge that the European Union’s misguided immigration policy is responsible for this situation’.
Orban’s policy on migration was criticised by businessman George Soros, who said: ‘His plan treats the protection of national borders as the objective and the refugees as an obstacle.’ The Hungarian government began attacking Soros and his NGOs in 2017, particularly for his support for more open immigration.
In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the Hungarian parliament voted 137 to 53 to pass laws creating a state of emergency without a time limit, granting Orban the power to rule by decree and suspend the parliament with no elections. Under the state of emergency, Orban could also impose prison sentences for spreading ‘fake news’ and breaches of Covid-19 quarantine. The law granting the power to rule by decree was lifted on June 16.
