Israel’s ambassador to Budapest issued a sharply-worded statement, following a bizarre and vicious display of overt antisemitism in the town of Érpatak, located in the northeastern county of Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg. The town’s far-right mayor, Mihály Zoltán Orosz, organized a mock, public execution (which Ambassador Ilan Mor referred to as a “horror show”), where effigies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and […]
Hungarian human resources minister Zoltán Balog’s comments that Roma were not deported from Hungary during the Holocaust and that Roma intellectuals need to be careful not to focus as much on the experience of the Holocaust as the Jews did, for fear that the sense of “victimhood” lead to schizophrenia, has resulted in calls for the minister’s resignation. Ágnes Kunhalmi, […]
Last week Georgia’s ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili showed up at Viktor Orbán’s doorstep in Budapest. He came with a video crew. Mr. Saakashvili is in a peculiar situation, he is on the run. He left Georgia in mid-November 2013, two days before his presidential term officially expired. Georgian authorities recently brought charges against him under part three of article 333 of […]
One day after the commemoration of the Roma Holocaust (also known as Porajmos) Hungarian Human Resources Minister Zoltán Balog denied that Hungarian Roma were deported from Hungary and went on to warn the community that they must be careful not to focus as much on these Holocaust experiences as the country’s Jewish population has focused on the Shoah, for fear that […]
On Sunday, Romania’s Prime Minister, the 41 year old Victor Ponta, addressed about 200 people in Nyergestető (Piatra Niergeș), Hargita in Hungarian, during a commemoration that recalled the 165th anniversary of a critical battle during the 1848/49 Revolution and War of Independence. Mr. Ponta was invited to the commemoration by Hunor Kelemen, president of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania […]
I am speaking about democracy in a nutshell today, because pretty well that’s all is left of Hungarian democracy by today. In fact, it is even quite loose in that nutshell, after having shrunk so small. On December 31 2013, in the late night hours, as the country was well on its way to get drunk and celebrate the new year, […]
Hungary’s M1, the main public television channel, interviewed economist and Orbán government consultant Csaba Lentner, airing his views on why journalists in the West reacted so critically and fiercely to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s infamous ‘illiberal’ speech in Tusnádfürdő, Romania, last weekend. What the state broadcaster (which is hardly known for its fair and balanced reporting, even though they are […]
Bea Gergely, a Budapest-based freelance photo reporter, attended Orlai Produkció’s adaptation of Amadeus, a play by British playwright and screenwriter Sir Peter Sheffer. The play offers the audience a fictionalized version of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s life. The narrative is told from the perspective of fellow composer Antonio Salieri who — as a devout Catholic and as someone who is highly envious […]
Never in over four years of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s rise to power with a supermajority have major western journals and commentators sounded the alarm bells quite so loud. In just the last 24 hours, two major outlets have written about the demise of parliamentary democracy in Hungary, in a manner that has never before been seen, not even when […]
Freelance photographer Bea Gergely had the chance to peak behind the scenes, as the Hungarian State Opera prepares for a production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida at the Budapest Summer Festival. The opera will be hosted at the Margaret Island Open Air Theatre (Margitszigeti Szabadtéri Színház). Ms. Gergely shared her exclusive photos with the Hungarian Free Press, giving opera aficionados an insider’s glimpse […]
