“The member states of the UN are independent, but they are not independent from the truth, just like UN officials, who should be dependent on member states and their citizens”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó declared on Wednesday in Geneva at a session of the UN Human Rights Council.

“Certain officials recently made impossible claims about Hungary, and they were nothing more than lies. They are behaving as if the Hungarians are incapable of deciding on their own future”, he said in a statement following his speech, which was aired on Hungarian M1 television.

“They think Hungary should be placed under some kind of supervision, meaning that the Hungarian people must be protected from themselves. Hungary has plenty of experience of what it is like when it is placed under some kind of protectorate against the interests of its own people”, the Minister declared.

The Minister said that in his opinion these officials cite various reports and behave as if these opinions represent the opinion of civil society in Hungary. According to Mr. Szijjártó, “These are in fact the opinions of NGOs that are political players, and which wanted to topple the Hungarian Government at the last elections and are working against the Hungarian Government”. The politician pointed out that there are 60 thousand non-governmental organisations operating in Hungary, noting that the opinions of less than a dozen NGOs are mirrored in these documents, and it is always the same ones; none of the others are represented.

Mr. Szijjártó stressed that every Hungarian citizen has the right to donate 1 percent of their annual taxes to civil society organisation. 769 citizens donated their 1 percent to the Hungarian Helsinki Committee and 261 to Amnesty International, which according to the Minister is obviously insufficient to fund their operations. The politician said it was scandalous that these documents claim that these organisations represent the opinion of the Hungarian people. “This is not true. We represent the opinion of the Hungarian people in view of the fact that we won the elections. The current Hungarian governing parties won for the third time with a two-thirds majority. The governing parties received 330 thousand more votes than all of the other party’s combined”, Mr. Szijjártó declared.

The Hungarian Foreign Minister said the question is why these UN representatives are not taking into account the true opinion of the Hungarian people, and why they do not represent the human rights of the Hungarians, because the Hungarians have the right to live in security in their own country and to decide whom they want to live with. And we have the right to preserve our traditions and our heritage, he added.

“These UN officials aren’t bothering with these rights. It is clear that they are biased, and biased on the side of the pro-immigration parties. We will not be allowing a single illegal immigrant into Hungary and will protect our country. These officials are attempting to force impossible things onto us. They claim that immigration is a fundamental human right, but nobody has the right to decide what country they want to live in or to cross a state border illegally. No international treaty gives them the right to do so”, the Minister emphasised.

“We ask that these UN officials stop spreading lies about Hungary and stop applying double standards. We ask that they take into account the right of the Hungarian people to live a peaceful and secure life at home”, he said.

“The Hungarian Government will always act in accordance with the mandate that it has received from the electorate with a two-thirds majority for the third time now”, the Foreign Minister underlined.

“The land of the Hungarians is happy, and is proud of its thousand-year history, its Christian culture and its traditions. I ask”, he said, turning to the Council, “that UN representatives not think that they are independent from the truth. UN representatives must be banned from spreading lies about member states”, Mr. Szijjártó said in closing.

(MTI)