{"id":25828,"date":"2018-12-17T02:22:10","date_gmt":"2018-12-17T02:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=25828"},"modified":"2018-12-17T02:22:10","modified_gmt":"2018-12-17T02:22:10","slug":"thousands-in-hungary-protest-pm-viktor-orbans-slave-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=25828","title":{"rendered":"Thousands in Hungary protest PM Viktor Orban’s ‘slave law’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Thousands of people protested in Hungary<\/a> against a controversial new labour law and the rule of right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban.<\/p>\n

Sunday’s protest, called “Merry Xmas Mr Prime Minister” by organisers, was the fourth and biggest demonstration in a week by leftist opposition parties, student groups, trade unions and ordinary people against the nationalist government. <\/span><\/p>\n

Protesters waved Hungarian and European Union<\/a> flags in Budapest as they walked from Heroes’ Square towards parliament in crisp winter weather. They held up banners and shouted slogans including “Don’t steal” and “Independent courts”.<\/p>\n

Citizens in cities outside the capital such as Gyor, Szeged, Miskolc and Debrecen demonstrated for the first time on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The unrest was sparked after opposition parties blew sirens and whistles inside parliament on Wednesday in an unsuccessful effort to prevent the adoption of two controversial bills.<\/span><\/p>\n

A labour code change<\/a> dubbed the “slave law” by its critics hikes the maximum annual overtime hours for workers and extends the time period for calculating and paying overtime to three years.<\/p>\n

Trade unions say the changes were made at the behest of large international manufacturing companies and could expose workers to exploitation – as well as delays in overtime payments.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the government, the law will benefit both those wanting to work more hours and employers who need more manpower as the economy struggles with labour shortages.<\/span><\/p>\n

New courts<\/h2>\n

Also passed by parliament, which is dominated by Orban’s ruling party, was a bill paving the way for new “administrative courts” to oversee public administration cases such as public procurements or election procedures.<\/span><\/p>\n

Justice Minister Laszlo Trocsanyi, a close Orban ally, will oversee the courts – leading some to warn of near-total political influence over the judicial system.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anger over the legislation has prompted various opposition parties – who accuse Orban and his Fidesz party of steering Hungary towards authoritarianism – to join forces during the protests.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pro-government public and commercial media have portrayed the protesters as anarchists and “mercenaries of George Soros”.<\/p>\n

The Hungarian-born billionaire Soros from the United States has long been accused by Orban<\/a> of plotting to import migrants into Europe and destabilise Hungary.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thousands of people protested in Hungary against a controversial new labour law and the rule of right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Sunday’s protest, called “Merry Xmas Mr Prime Minister” by organisers, was the fourth and biggest demonstration in a week by leftist opposition parties, student groups, trade unions and ordinary people against the nationalist government.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":25829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}