Defamation of religion is not allowed not only in Hungary, but nowhere in the civilized world. It is necessary to prevent religious blasphemers from crossing the red line in Hungary, Imre Vejkey, member of parliament of the KDNP, who recently won a final lawsuit against a left-wing newspaper publishing blasphemous content, told the Democrat.

- The caricature published in Népssava last April shows the crucified Jesus next to the national chief medical officer Cecília Müller, with the following text: "His underlying disease caused addiction." Why did you start the lawsuit?

- The persecution of Christians in the 21st century the most significant human rights crisis of the 20th century. It is rampant in the world on an unprecedented scale. An average of eight Christians are killed every day, and some 260 million believers are directly exposed to persecution. In recent years, not only in communist and Islamic dictatorships, but also in Western societies, the situation of Christians has deteriorated to an extraordinary extent, aggressive attacks against Christian believers, and incidents against Christian churches and graves have increased. In addition to the physical, however, there is also a spiritual persecution of Christians, the target of which is the crucified Jesus Christ. The liberal press is not only silent about this, but also mocks Christian symbols and Christian opinion makers. I filed a lawsuit against the caricature insulting the crucified Jesus Christ under the title of violation of the human dignity of the members of the Christian community and violation of their personal right to religious freedom. The cartoon mocked our Christian religious community, disregarding our faith, provoking Christians and all people of good sense.

- How did the Metropolitan Court of First Instance justify that the scandalous caricature of Népszava does not violate the dignity of the Christian community?

– The first-instance court rejected my claim, saying that if everything is removed from the caricature and only the crucified Jesus remains, then this is just a conventional representation of Christ. With this, the Metropolitan Court virtually swept the signatures of nearly 35,000 compatriots protesting against the drawing off the table, saying that it is not suitable for proving social public perception. The judge also explained to me that according to today's general public perception, the drawing is just a good-natured joke. I do not accept the court's reasoning that the right to human dignity should bow to the free expression of opinion. Our Basic Law provides just the opposite, as it states that the exercise of freedom of expression cannot be aimed at violating the dignity of religious communities, while our Civil Code confirms this and states that everyone is obliged to respect human dignity and the personal rights arising from it.

By the way, the court of first instance wanted to reject my claim when it was submitted, because it could not interpret the concept of the Christian community. I'm not kidding, in the more than thousand-year-old country of St. Stephen, a judge called me to explain what the Christian community means, otherwise he would reject the claim.

You can read the entire interview on the democrata portal.

Photo: Gergely Vogt/Demokrata