If we listen to Klára Ungár, a liberal politician and economist, and over two decades ago, a much younger Viktor Orbán’s former colleague, the Hungarian prime minister has gone too far and can no longer save himself from his own downfall. “There is no longer anything that Orbán can do, in order to save himself. Whether he cooperates or digs […]
Hasan Abadi is a 26 year old artist from Nablus, Palestine, who like millions around the world has been horrified by the ill treatment of Syrian refugees in Hungary, both by government authorities, as well as by the nationalist right in general. The story of a female Hungarian television reporter, Petra László, kicking, tripping and otherwise physically assaulting Syrian children […]
Hungary’s Fidesz government has managed to almost completely desensitize its right-wing supporters and much of Hungarian society to the plight of hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees from Syria, thanks to the overtly xenophobic billboard campaign that it ran for weeks before the acute phase of the refugee crisis. This week, a female camerawoman for the N1 TV online news […]
Hungary’s ambassador to Canada, Bálint Ódor, sent letters to the editor to various Canadian news outlets, in which he attempted to whitewash the shockingly vicious actions of his xenophobic government against Syrian refugees and blamed the media and other EU member states for the crisis. Here is a response from Professor Stevan Harnad: The Ódor excuses are rank and all-too-familiar […]
It is by now patently obvious that the refugee “crisis” that Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has artificially and systematically created had 3 goals: (1) to divert attention from Orbán’s many mounting corruption scandals, (2) to re-assert and reinforce Orbán’s populistic self-image as the nation’s protector against the invasion of the Turks and the exploitation by the EU and (3) […]
Zsolt Enyedi, Professor of Political Science at Central European University Budapest, will speak at the University of California at Berkeley on September 2, 12-1:30 p.m., 270 Stephens Hall. (Details here.) For some of us it is becoming clear that Fidesz is pursuing the same far-right policies as Jobbik, Hungary’s neo-Nazi party, and the country is slowly becoming a totalitarian state. […]
Despite the fact that thousands of refugees are arriving in Hungary, the average citizen hardly notices this crisis. Although one can see Afghans and Syrians at major railway stations, the majority of people are not faced directly with the problem. And this is quite simply because the majority of those arriving in Hungary end up leaving the country within a […]
The August 29th dedication of the new Chapel (Magyarok Nagyasszonya kápolna) at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC will start with a Solemn Mass celebrated by Cardinal Wuerl of Washington and Cardinal Erdő of Esztergom-Budapest. Readings and choral pieces will be both in English and in Hungarian. This could be a wonderful religious […]
Popular talk radio host György Bolgár of Hungary’s Klubrádió interviewed Professor András Göllner, founder of the Canadian Hungarian Democratic Charter (CHDC) on Wednesday. (Part 1 is available here, and Part 2 here.) The Montreal-based academic and civil liberties activist was asked to speak to an article appearing in the New York Times, in which Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is presented […]
László Kövér is 55 years old. He is the Speaker of the Hungarian National Assembly and also a founding member of the ruling Fidesz party. He started his remarkable political career as a junior “apparatchik” of the Hungarian Communist Politburo in 1986. Born into a Communist family, he earned a law degree, and his contacts propelled him into a job […]
