Film crew captured the infamous moment a far-right Hungarian MEP was arrested at a gay sex party
Member of the European Parliament Jozsef Szajer gives a speech to launch the campaign of the right-wing Fidesz ruling party ahead of the European Parliament elections on April 5, 2019 in Budapest. (PETER KOHALMI/AFP via Getty)
A Belgian film crew managed to capture the moment that far-right Hungarian MEP Jozsef Szajer was caught by police while trying to run away from a gay orgy.
In December 2020, Szajer resigned from Viktor Orbán’s anti-LGBT+ Fidesz party, which he co-founded, after he was arrested for breaching coronavirus restrictions at a gay sex party in a Brussels apartment.
Police raided the party, which included 20 to 25 people, and found multiple attendees naked when they burst in. A spokesperson for the Brussels region’s deputy public prosecutor told The Guardian that Szajer climbed out of a window and was spotted “fleeing along the gutter” before he was arrested.
It has now been revealed that while the chaos was unfolding, a film crew from Belgian production house Bargoens was on the same street. While creating a documentary about Brussels police during the pandemic they managed to capture the moment on film.
The video shows Szajer, with his face blurred but his rainbow bobble hat still visible, pinned to a wall by armed police while they search and then arrest him.
According to EuroNews, the Flemish TV station VTM broadcast the clip in Belgium on Wednesday (24 March), as five-minute preview for a longer version of the footage to be released the next day.
Jozsef Szajer claims he is not homophobic
In a statement released Wednesday, when the footage of his arrest was made public, Jozsef Szajer said in a statement: “During my 16 years in European politics I served the interest and the freedom of the Hungarian nation, I was always ready to defend my country without compromise against the mean, hate-filled, ‘hungarophobic’ attacks.
“For my behaviour on 27 November, 2020 I took political responsibility by my prompt resignation from my mandate and party membership and I asked for forgiveness.
“In the last few month I got several unfair, or hateful attacks but I received empathy, too. I thank everyone, who gave me spiritual support and help during the most difficult of times.”
Szajer added that he has “always respected everyone’s human dignity and right to privacy”, and claimed: “During my 30 years of political career I never made any homophobic utterances.”
In 2012, Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party brought in a new constitution which defined marriage as between a man and a woman and did not explicitly protect LGBT+ people from discrimination.
According to AFP, in 2010 Jozsef Szajer was ironically put in charge of drafting the new constitution, including defining “the institution of marriage as between a man and a woman” as “the basis of the family and national survival”.
