On January 24, 2017, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) was awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit by Hungary. The award was presented in Washington D.C. with great fanfare by Orbán loyalist Ambassador Réka Szemerkényi and Kaptur expressed her support for the Budapest government. Hungarian taxpayer’s money was not spared. The award ceremony was preceded by a piano concert […]
The Mi Hazánk, or in English the Our Homeland far-right party announced the formation of a paramilitary group called the National Legion on 14 May 2019. This new group follows in the footsteps of the banned Magyar Gárda, once the paramilitary wing of the Jobbik party–back when it represented the hard right in Hungary. The Gárda, whose uniform closely resembled […]
The United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations is concerned about “Hungary’s downward democratic trajectory” and issued the following letter about Viktor Orbán’s upcoming visit to the White House. Four US Senators, among them ranking member Robert Menendez signed the letter. Not too long ago, in 2012 Senator Menendez actually praised Hungary’s democracy and politicians of the Orbán government, among […]
Historians will credit Prime Minister Viktor Orbán with having been ahead of his time on the nature of political discourse and on the populist transformation of what was once called conservatism. Mr. Orbán has avoided all debates with his political opponents since 2006 and finessed the tribal approach to politics that was only adopted by others in North America and […]
It’s May Day in Hungary — a national holiday where major political parties hold picnics and rallies, Budapest’s Városliget (City Park) fills with families, games for children, barbecues and vendors, and the almost moribund Munkáspárt, the hard-line successor of the country’s pre-1989 Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party, shows signs of life by marching on Andrássy út and serving zsíróskenyér (bread with […]
Our publication has been critical in the past of close contacts and friendly relationships between the prior Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and representatives of Hungary’s Orbán regime. The Hungarian Free Press, its contributors and many of its readers have on numerous occasions informed different layers of the Canadian political establishment of the systemic rule of law violations […]
Last December in the Polish city of Katowice, Arnold Schwarzenegger gave a brief speech about climate change. In his speech Arnold called President Trump meshuga. The Yiddish word means crazy and the audience responded with applause. Arnold grew up in Graz, Austria as a son of a one-time Nazi party-member policeman. I don’t think that he heard much Yiddish at […]
László Palkovics, Hungary’s Minister of Innovation and Technology, will speak at the University of California at Berkeley on Thursday, April 4. The title of his presentation is “Hungary as a European Hub for Autonomous Vehicle Design and Validation” Mr. Palkovics has been invited by the Department of Mechanical Engineering and is hosted by Professor Francesco Borrelli. Mr. Palkovics is a […]
Despite Viktor Orbán’s half-hearted letters of apology to members of the European People’s about his most recent anti-Soros, anti-Juncker and anti-migrant campaigns, an expression of regret for employing the term “useful idiots” when referring to his Christian Democratic partners in the EU and a pledge to stop harassing Central European University, the EPP appears to have had enough and has […]
Britain’s Attorney General Geoffrey Cox, a Tory politician appointed by the current prime minister, advised that Theresa May’s last ditch efforts to secure legally binding reassurances for her Brexit deal around the controversial backstop clause fell short of guaranteeing that the United Kingdom could unilaterally withdraw itself from a situation that would see Northern Ireland unified indefinitely with the Republic of […]
