Concordia’s Journalists for Human rights group will be hosting their first speaker series of the year on Thursday, Oct. 23 by Concordia Political Science Professor Emeritus András B. Göllner. Entitled “Rules for Civil Rights Activism”, the talk will look at what it takes to be a human rights activist and the dangers of the role by drawing largely from Göllner’s […]
Zsolt Németh, the chair of the Hungarian Parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee, first realized the real extent of troubles surrounding Hungary’s relationship with the United States when he presented at a conference in Washington D.C. earlier this fall. Mr. Németh spoke fairly candidly with the right-wing Válasz.hu website on Tuesday (the online presence of the Heti Válasz weekly, which was founded under […]
András Schiffer, leader of Politics Can Be Different (LMP), a small green party, which just barely passed the 5% hurdle needed for representation in Parliament during national elections in April, berated the more prominent left-centre opposition parties and added that a decent opposition result in Sunday’s municipal vote was critical, if Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is to be ousted from […]
Members of the European Pariament have determined that Tibor Navracsics, Hungary’s previous foreign affairs minister and earlier the country’s justice minister, is not fit to serve as the European Union’s commissioner for culture and education. Mr. Navracsics was the first candidate to be rejected during the current round of hearings. BBC News noted that this was a major slap in […]
Tibor Szanyi, currently a Member of the European Parliament and one of the most prominent politicians in the Hungarian Socialist Party, reportedly entertained a group of far right-wing bikers in Brussels this summer. The story is so bizarre, that one would be inclined to think that it was made up by a talented political satirist. Mr. Szanyi, after all, is […]
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 […]
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. […]
