If I had to define or characterize the reaction to the news of Barack Obama’s speech, I would call it frustrated and helpless anger. Right-wing pundits and some in government (Lajos Kósa or the Christian Democrats – KDNP, in specific) responded like an indignant teenager with a deep inferiority complex. KDNP politician Imre Vejkey wondered if the “fate of Ökotárs kept Obama […]
The Ottawa-based Canada-Hungary Educational Foundation’s board held its autumn planning meeting on September 9th, 2014 to review some of its work over the past year and to chart a direction moving forward. Now in its ninth year of existence, there was agreement that scholarship and internship programs should continue to form an important part of CHEF’s work, especially building on […]
Last week, former U.S. President Bill Clinton commented on the Daily Show, that with his brand of authoritarian capitalism, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán wants little more than to stay in power indefinitely and become wealthy through dubious means. (“Usually these guys just want to stay forever and make a lot of money,”–said Mr. Clinton.) The collective heart of the Orbán […]
Since 2003, I have served as president of the United Hungarian House in Los Angeles, an organization which is not only not antisemitic, but is ultimately a non-political and secular institution. Growing up as a child, we didn’t ask our classmates about one another’s religion (especially considering that few people practiced religious faith at that time), but rather we asked […]
Tibor Navracsics received the lowest ranking position in Jean-Claude Juncker’s new European Commission, having been appointed commissioner for education, culture, youth and citizenship. Mr. Navracsics has served as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s foreign affairs minister, but it is widely believed that this position will now be passed on to Péter Szijjártó, one of Fidesz’s most vocal supporters of the new […]
There seems to be broad agreement among supporters and officials of the Orbán regime on how to communicate Monday’s politically-motivated police raids against a handful of NGOs, including Ökotárs. These non-profits are perceived to have a liberal or left-leaning bias and are thus targets of Hungary’s right-wing authoritarian government . On Monday evening, Gergely Huth, the assistant publisher of the pro-Fidesz Pesti Srácok blog, […]
The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU) condemned Monday’s police raids against Hungarian NGOs as politically motivated actions that elevate the illiberal Orban government’s attack against civil society to a new, unprecedented level. On September 8, 2014, dozens of police officers from the National Bureau of Investigation (NNI) raided the offices of Ökotárs and Demnet, two NGOs responsible for the distribution of Norwegian NGO […]
A dozen police officers were sent out to search the offices of Budapest’s Ökotárs Alapítvány Monday morning and then at noon, investigators arrived at the offices of another NGO called the Foundation for the Development of Democratic Rights. The police arrived unannounced to both locations and prohibited employees to make any phone calls using office telephones, as they ransacked both headquarters. […]
Ukraine has been invaded by Russia. Ukraine is being dismembered. What is happening is not an intervention or an incursion. The Kremlin’s black deeds are not a “stealth war,” nor is this any kind of Cold War. It’s bloodthirsty hot. Ukraine’s Crimea has been under Russian military occupation since March. Heavy weapons fired from inside the Russian Federation are killing […]
Gábor Halmai teaches law at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest and also serves as the director of the Hungarian Human Rights Information and Documentation Centre. Professor Halmai is currently based in Washington, D.C., where he is a fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy. * In his speech, delivered before an ethnic Hungarian audience at the 25th Bálványos Free Summer […]
