Global Voices » Hungary

Blaming the Blind Dog: Hungarian Politician's Domestic Violence Case

Marietta Le — Thu, 02 May 2013 00:11:39 +0000

Hungarian netizens are furious over a governing Fidesz party politician's alleged involvement in a domestic violence case. József Balogh, who is reported to have beaten his partner so badly she had to be treated at a hospital, stated that she had been drunk and got hurt because she tripped over the family's blind dog. According to Origo.hu news site [hu], however, the woman said the politician had hit her.

FN24.hu news site conducted an interview [hu] with Mr. Balogh after the case came to light. Here is what Mr. Balogh had to say about it:

Is Terike, who is being treated at a hospital in Kecskemét [city] with a skull fracture, your partner?

Yes, she is. So it was, like, we arrived home on Sunday at five in the morning from the feast, Terike grabbed a bowl of meat, which we brought home to taste, from the trunk, and started carrying it into the house. But we have a Komondor dog weighing 80 kilograms, he is blind and was scared of something, so he ran ahead, and pushed Terike, who fell and hit her head.

Komondor is a Hungarian breed of sheepdogs, well-known for the special long and corded white coat. The suspicious story of the blind Komondor started a series of memes featuring the dog or a woman falling in a strange way. FN.24 posted a collection of these memes [hu], while the mock blog Hírcsárda started a Facebook campaign [hu] for the blind dog.

Hírcsárda blog shared this picture on Facebook with this caption: “One million likes and I will see again.”

A meme from m00kid.tumblr.com.

A group of citizens organized a rally against domestic violence on May 1, titled ‘Walking the dog together – the Komondor is innocent’ [hu].

After the recent discussions on domestic violence in Hungary, this case has brought up the sensitive issue again. According to the account of Mr. Balogh's ex-wife [hu], the man had subjected her to domestic violence during the 25 years of their marriage.

Rosa_parks on Kettős Mérce blog [hu] called for the government to finally take a step, since the issue of domestic violence has to be tackled in this Eastern European country:

We are still living in a subservient, submissive, sneaking country where [one has to be brave enough] to report a family member for domestic violence. The uncertain legal background is only partially the reason for the low number of police investigations – fear is much more common. The absolutely legitimate and intelligible fear. Every sensitive person's heart goes out [to the victims of those cases], because domestic violence is present in almost every family.

Hungarian Students Blog on Freedom of Information Requests

Atlatszo.hu — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 18:39:43 +0000

Hungarian grassroots student union Hallgatói Hálózat (Student Network) started a blog that curates freedom of information requests related to higher education. The blog, titled Transparent Education [hu], is using the Hungarian public freedom of information request service KiMitTud [hu] to track down the allegations of misuse of funds by university student governments. The blog's author Dániel G. Szabó was the one who sued the Faculty of Law at ELTE University in order to publicize the information on the Faculty's student government spendings. The aim of the blog is to promote the use of freedom of information requests, and to make the spending of public funds transparent at Hungarian colleges and universities.

Trying to Get Through: Hungarians Send Video Messages to Prime Minister

Marietta Le — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 10:55:37 +0000

The snow that first blanketed western Europe eventually reached Hungary by March 15, the day of an important national holiday. Heavy snowfall left thousands stranded on the roads of this eastern European country, and the Hungarian government received harsh criticism for not being able to handle the situation (even though before the winter's coldest period started, it entertained citizens by nominating the director of the National Directorate General for Disaster Management as the government's “Commissioner of Winter Preparations” [hu]). The events planned for the March 15 national holiday, among them regular celebrations as well as anti- and pro-government rallies, were postponed for a few days.

The anti-government protests were ignited by the adoption of the Fourth Amendment to the Hungarian Constitution, which was passed on March 11 and approved with the President's signature on March 25 [hu]. Many people in Hungary fear that the activities of the current right-wing government are wresting the country from the democratic environment it first entered after 1989 (re-confirming its position in 2004 with the accession to the European Union).

The Fourth Amendment joins the list of the many steps taken by the Hungarian government that draw criticism from international human rights organizations and the Hungarian citizens:

In December 2012, the cutbacks in higher education started a series of protests;
Recently, the news that the former Economy Minister and the PM's close ally took over as the head of Hungary's Central Bank generated international criticism;
The government's handing of a journalism award to a TV anchor infamous for his offensive and racist comments was also attacked;
A well-known cultural center in Budapest has been ordered to shut down after the holidays – apparently, in an attempt to silence some of the anti-government protesters;
On the early morning of March 29, the police took activists who participated in the occupation of the governing party's headquarters to a hearing for disorderly conduct. (In the wake of another weekend of protests, Hungarian journalist László Szily saw this [hu] as a method communist law enforcement would have used before 1989 to humiliate citizens.)

Young Hungarians are also shocked by the government's stubborn refusal to acknowledge their protests and their demands for a more democratic decision-making. To get their message across, four young people launched a new blog on March 22, asking fellow citizens to send 1- to 3-minute-long video messages to the Prime Minister with their thoughts on his governance.

On the blog “Send a message to Viktor Orbán!” [hu], there are already many video messages recorded by people from all walks of life. The latest one [hu] comes from a BSc student in her third year who complains about the limited resources in Hungarian education. There is a video [hu] sent by a Hungarian IT professional living in Oxford, UK, who recalls how much the prime minister has changed from a young man fighting for democracy during Hungary's transition to “a regional director who is badly managing his limited company.” An eighth-grade school student also recorded a message [hu] to the PM pointing out that she didn't know what would happen in four years, when she would have to apply to a university, because at the moment her school's existence is also questioned after a cutback of financial resources.

The blog is run by Asia Dér, a student of the University of Theatre and Film Arts; Dániel Szabó G., a student of the Faculty of Law of ELTE University, activist of HaHa grassroots student union and a blogger of the Faculty of Law Student Government Monitor; Dániel Prinz, activist of HaHa grassroots student union, an economist working in Boston; Borbála Lőrincz, an undergraduate student of Durham University's Anthropology and Sociology program.

Here is how the blog authors described their initiative:

Our website is a citizen initiative to the fullest, we are not connected to any party or political organization. We created this website because recent days, weeks, months have demonstrated that the only effective way of fighting the government's autocracy is speaking up against it individually or together. They can say as many times as they want that there's George Soros, Gordon Bajnai or international interests behind the student and other protests – we prove that it isn't true. It's the Hungarian citizens who are behind the protests [...].

This is why we are sending messages to Viktor Orbán, getting the ordinary citizens to tell him how they feel, [without being influenced by] the pro-government media and the public media [currently used as a propaganda tool]. Our messages are symbolic in a sense that we're not the ones who are going to relay it to the PM. But we are hoping that if there are enough people speaking up, these personal messages would reach the rest of [those who voted for the current government and those who talk about foreign and party influence], and would make them think over what they still believe in. In addition to this, we would like to reassure the people that they can and should have a word in the public political discourse, which is part of our everyday lives.

Hungarian Bloggers Take Student Union To Court

Atlatszo.hu — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 08:32:39 +0000

Students from the Faculty of Law at ELTE University in Hungary sued the faculty's student union after they denied a freedom of information (FOIA) request. The students wanted to know who received bonus payments from the union's monthly budget of around $3,300. They wrote on their blog ÁJK HÖK Figyelő (Faculty of Law Student Union Monitor)[hu] that the student union head unilaterally decides on bonus payments. The initiative of the law bloggers gained support of the Hungarian National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information as well, and their first court hearing [hu] attracted some 30 members of the public.

Hungarian Constitution is “Not a Toy”

Marietta Le — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 23:01:54 +0000

According to a report [hu] on Facebook page “The Constitution is Not a Toy,” some 100 protesters have occupied the Hungarian governing party's headquarters; a pro-government crowd, however, has also showed up at the scene. The protesters voiced their opposition to the planned new amendment of the Hungarian constitution, a basic law that was enacted in 2011, after Fidesz Party won with a two thirds majority in 2010, and has been at the center of heated debates in and outside the country ever since. The latest review of the amendment by the Princeton University professor Kim Lane Scheppele was published here.

What is “Hungarian Music”?

Marietta Le — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 20:13:43 +0000

Hungarian musicians signed an online petition [hu] against the restrictive definition of “Hungarian music” included in Hungary's media law, which considers only Hungarian-language productions as “Hungarian music.” The petitioners argued that the definition is not only excluding many artists from being part of the Hungarian music and culture, but is discriminatory when it comes to the application of language quotas in radio broadcasts. Radio stations have to apply a 35-percent quota of “Hungarian music” in their music shows. The regulation came into effect in July 2012 [hu].

“Liberal, Jewish, Sexy”: Keeping Tabs on Hungarian Students

Atlatszo.hu — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 01:25:57 +0000

Last week, Hungarian TV channel Atv reported [hu] that they had obtained a list created by the official student union at one of Hungary's most renowned universities. Allegedly, the student union members at ELTE University‘s Faculty of Humanities (BTK) added offensive comments to a list of applicants to the university's freshmen camping trip, using personal information available on once the largest Hungarian social network iWiW. The leaked [hu] list was created in 2009.

A screenshot of Atv's report.

The list contains personal information of more than 600 students, including their date of birth, address, phone number and email. It also contains many extremely offensive comments: the authors voiced their opinions, among other things, on people who liked animals, football, had Greater Hungary on their profile photos, looked attractive or unattractive, were members of the Christian or liberal organizations, attended high school with Jewish teachers or were openly gay.

In a statement [hu] on the case, the Hungarian National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information emphasized that the existence of such a list may be regarded as illegal, because personal information such as race, ethnicity, political and religious views, sexual preferences and health are subject to special protection according to the Hungarian law.

The list brought to light another problematic issue at the university's Faculty of Humanities, namely that several members of the student union were members of the far-right Jobbik party. Dávid Lakner of Teadélután blog stated [hu] that it was no news that the BTK student union also served as a way to start careers with Jobbik. Although the student union members who talked to Atlatszo.hu news site [hu] anonymously complained that it didn't matter where they were in 2009, all of them had to face accusations of being supporters of the Hungarian far right. According to a recent research [hu], 33 percent of the Hungarian university students would vote for Jobbik these days.

Péter György, head of ELTE's Institute for Art Theory and Media Studies, wrote in an op-ed piece [hu] that the listing of students brought shame on the faculty and the university, and that the faculty shares the responsibility for Jobbik's recruitment being so successful among their students. In his self-deprecating text, the university professor concluded that the decision to run a strictly apolitical faculty after 1990 led to the correctly applied academic norms in the curriculum, but failed to protect students from neo-Nazi ideas.

The student union acknowledged [hu] the existence of a database containing contact information of about 1,000 students who participated in freshmen camping trips, but denied having any collection of other data.

A source told Atlatszo.hu that lists serving discriminatory purposes were created by certain student union members, without the knowledge of the majority of those working to support the university students’ lives. The BTK student union has its own powerful elite, which includes members of Jobbik as well. Even though the existence of the list resulted in a battle at the student union in 2011, it did not come to light until now.

Another student union member accidentally learned about the en masse checking of social media profiles, but assumed that the “profiling” served as a spare time activity to some people looking for girlfriends. A meme [hu] that was started after the appearance of the list was a comment also referring to this, it said “[She] will be good for Pista”, Pista being most probably the nickname of the former student union president István Szávay, who is currently an MP from Jobbik.

Summer Course: Internet Advocacy

Solana Larsen — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 07:41:31 +0000

The Central European University in Budapest, Hungary is offering an intensive course in Internet Governance, Civil Society and Public Policy Advocacy on July 8-19, 2013 in partnership with the Annenberg School of Communication and Center for Democracy and Technology. Apply online before March 15.

Students to Protest Constitutional Amendment

Veronica Khokhlova — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 00:51:27 +0000

The Hungarian Student Network and the Hungarian High School Network posted a declaration [en] “about the rule of law” in Hungary – and are planning yet another protest rally [hu] in Budapest on Monday, Feb. 11:

Today’s proposal for a constitutional amendment has made it obvious – even for those who so far doubted it – that the government is openly dismantling the system of checks and balances. According to Article 12 of the proposal, the Constitutional Court will not be allowed to scrutinize the content of any further amendments, which in effect means that the government and its two-thirds parliamentary majority will be able to pass any amendments they want. [...]

The Romanian-Hungarian “War of the Flags”

Veronica Khokhlova — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 01:42:48 +0000

Hungarian Spectrum writes about the ongoing diplomatic confrontation between Romania and Hungary, sparked by the Romanian authorities’ ban on flying the flag of the Székely Land, an ethnic Hungarian enclave currently demanding territorial autonomy within Romania.

Hungarian Journalist Kidnapped, Then Released in Aleppo

Marietta Le — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 22:05:27 +0000

Bálint Szlankó, a Hungarian foreign correspondent, was kidnapped – and later released – in Aleppo, Syria. He wrote this [en] on his Facebook page on Jan. 23:

Just been through a 12-hour kidnapping ordeal in Aleppo. Yesterday morning me, a Mexican and a Basque journalist were abducted by unknown gunmen near the Ezzaa frontline in eastern Aleppo. We were handcuffed, blindfolded and held in a cell for the rest of the day. Eventually we were stripped of all our possessions and left by the roadside in an abandoned area of the city. We then made our way to the headquarters of the Al Tawheed brigade, one of the main armed opposition groups in Aleppo. We are now well and unharmed and out of Syria. [...]

Parallels Between Religious and Copyright Wars

Filip Stojanovski — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 13:54:28 +0000

Rick Falkvinge, the founder of Pirate Party, reinterprets the wars of religion that devastated Western Europe in the XVI and XVII centuries in terms of the current struggle to control information through overbearing legislation related to copyright and freedom of expression:

The religious wars were never about religion as such. They were about who held the power of interpretation, about who controlled the knowledge and culture available to the masses. It was a war of gatekeepers of information.

Hungarian Student Protesters Face Punishment, Keep Fighting

Atlatszo.hu — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 00:45:00 +0000

In December 2012, Hungarian university and high school students united to protest against the significant cutbacks in higher education admission quotas. Their fight for tution-free slots continues. (GV coverage is here, here, and here.)

Atlatszo.hu wrote [hu] that many students were threatened with being expelled if they wanted to protest. Students dared to share their stories with the journalists only anonymously, as they feared being held back from taking their high school final exams.

HVG.hu reported [hu] that in December a principal of a high school in Balatonalmádi summoned students to her office and questioned them about their opinion on the protests, taking notes to prepare a report to the county government office.

Students of a high school in Szombathely attended a demonstration in the after-school hours, but their class attendance was recorded as an “unapproved absence.”

Students of a Budapest high school also wanted to hold a sit-in strike, as many others did in December, but their Facebook event was deleted by a member of the high school student union, who was rather loyal to the school's staff. The Facebook event had almost 300 “attending” people, and, as in the case of Balatonalmádi, the students of János Xántus Secondary School were also questioned by their principal.

According to the students’ account [hu], after the protest held in front of the Hungarian Radio, they were told that they obstructed the education process with their activities, and since they were students they had no right to protest — which was not true, as the grassroots student union HaHa wrote in their legal FAQ [hu] for young protesters.

The rose is a reference to Rózsa Hoffmann, the state secretary for education, and the sign of this student protester says: “I don't have money for a normal banner.” Photo by Peter Nemeth, copyright © Demotix (10/19/2012).

Activists of HaHa also had to face the “adults” at a conference-exhibition on education on January 18, where they wanted to pose questions to Rózsa Hoffmann, the state secretary for education. Her policies are so hated among the students that a protest's title and posters featured puns on her name. On many occasions students took roses with them to the rallies. The demonstration which ended with three students getting arrested in December was titled “Winter Rose Student Revolution” (in Hungarian: Télirózsás Diákforradalom), referring to the state secretary's first name (rózsa = rose) and borrowing the expression from a Hungarian historical event, the Aster Revolution, since the aster flower is called “autumn rose” in Hungarian. On December 19, students threw roses in the Danube River (video at 3:10 [hu]) to reject Rózsa Hoffmann's policies symbolically as well.

And when the activists wanted to talk to her in real life, they weren't allowed to ask questions, so they started shouting their comments to the audience, and some people shouted back that the students should stop criticizing the government's efforts (a video is here [hu]). A woman, allegedly the principal of a Kecskemét city high school, became a meme [hu] with her comments; among other things, she said that the activists should have been attending a class at their college at that moment, and before criticizing anything they should first achieve something.

Magyar Narancs weekly's online edition learned [hu] that another participant of the conference, who told a HaHa activist to go home and slap his father because he hadn't educated him on correct behaviour, was the mayor of the village of Nógrádsáp.

Márton Hó, a Hungarian singer and songwriter, used the words of the “adults” defending the government as the lyrics of his song; his video has over 42,000 views so far. The title of the song is, “Listen, little brother!”:

Interview with Szabolcs Panyi, Editor of Global Voices in Hungarian

Marietta Le — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:41:03 +0000

Szabolcs Panyi, 26, is the author and editor of a popular Hungarian blog, Véleményvezér (“Opinion Leader”). He joined Global Voices in Hungarian in September 2011, and since March 2012 he has been the site's co-editor.

Global Voices: Junior Prima Award [hu] is handed to talented young Hungarians every year. Is it possible that in 2012 you were the first blogger to receive it [hu]?

Szabolcs Panyi: Yes, I'm the first one who received it as a blogger. It's extraordinary for sure, but it's not only about me, but about the blog [hu], and therefore it's about the other authors as well. On the other hand, with this [award] the importance of blogs is also recognized.

GV: Before you joined Global Voices, I often quoted Véleményvezér on our English site, because I believed its name reflected what it did: it's an opinion leader blog for Hungarian readers. What was the key to making a blog dealing with public affairs so popular?

SZP: I think mostly the fact that we are trying to write Anglo-Saxon style texts, brief and as even-tempered as possible. Blogs and Hungarian op-eds are usually quite passionate, partial and ironic in style. We wanted something different. Our aim is not to reach agreement, but to make people think. We drifted more towards critizing the government lately, though, but the whole Hungarian politics has changed.

Szabolcs Panyi, blogger of Véleményvezér

The concept [of the blog] is that we highlight the most important event of the previous day, so we basically help those who are not following politics so closely to always find important stories, and they don't have to go through a bunch of things. In addition to this, we are cooperating with Index [a news site], and we owe a lot to Index and Blog.hu [a blog service of Index], because they promote us on their main page, among their own content, and this way they send a lot of readers to us.

GV: Do you know your readers, do you have an idea about who reads Véleményvezér?

SZP: According to the statistics of our Facebook page, it is mostly people between 25 and 45, male, residents of Budapest [the capital]. I often meet people who tell me that they read it, and it's always good to hear that. Recently, mainly middle-of-the-road, disillusioned, disappointed right-wingers, and long-time critics of the governing party have started reading us. But those who we'd rather like to address are a little bit like us, under 45, [people in their] 20s and 30s, who want to see Hungary following Western norms and maintaining good relations with its Western allies, rather than with the oppressive regimes, since we belong in the West. And, of course, [those who want] the government to pursue a reasonable, pragmatic economic policy because that makes the country strong. That is to say, classic right-wing moderates who have been watching the events of the Hungarian politics with a long face for a while now.

Our name is Véleményvezér [“Opinion Leader”] because the aim is not only to reach out to a lot of people, but to reach those more important people who have influence and opinion-making powers, or are in decision-making positions. Capitalizing on this, we are trying to draw attention to issues we find important, that's why we deal more with certain things than the broader audience would find it important – for instance, with the country's communist secret service past.

GV: At some point you invited public figures, journalists and experts to comment on your posts. What was the procedure you followed?

SZP: We disabled commenting to the broader audience, everyone can comment on our articles on Facebook [hu] using their real names, there we usually receive 50-200 comments to each text. On the blog, 20-30 invited commenters can reply, they are mainly economists, journalists, political commentators, university professors, experts from different backgrounds, who are all under 45 and have produced something valuable in their fields. They would be our ideal readers, and they are the ones we would like to present to our readers as figures who are more noteworthy than those run-down, old columnists who grew up during socialism and have been repeating the same things since then.

GV: Was there any other reason for directing commenters to Facebook?

SZP: The level of the Hungarian commenting culture is pretty low, and we wanted quality comments on our site, and to develop quality debate culture there. We received plenty of comments on the posts, let's say more than a thousand, and to find something meaningful, you had to scroll through the whole thing, thus it was totally worthless content, or rather the valuable content was lost among the worthless [comments]. But by taking this step we were able to make sure that comments were adding value in every case.

The latest example was a comment by Lászó Varró of the International Energy Agency [Head of the Gas, Coal and Power Division], and when Index highlighted the comment on their main page, that directed an additional 20,000 readers to us. Only by having that comment featured.

GV: In your article [hu] published on the occasion of the Blog Action Day you wrote that the Hungarian bloggers were free, they could publish anything. Do you still believe that?

SZP: Yes, they can publish virtually anything. Of course, there are bloggers leaning to political parties, whose blogs are financed by parties in one way or another, or they themselves work close to politics. Obviously, they don't write about certain things or are not framing so harshly even when criticizing their own people, while they are promoting certain topics popular on their political side.

GV: If bloggers can write freely, can we say that they have taken over the role of journalists to some extent?

SZP: We bloggers can react faster and can work on our stories almost without any restraint, while poor journalists have to sit in newsrooms and [publish news wires] around the clock, and they often remain with an almost total lack of creativity and no time to write opinion. It's in the genre of op-eds where bloggers have to a large extent taken over the role of journalists. There are not many traditional, well-known, respected columnists left in Hungary, those who are around are outdated, they publish in dailies, so the people we are addressing are not really reading them.

From left to right: Emőke Kilin, Szabolcs Panyi, Tamás Novák, Kata Molnár, Nóra Netoleczky, Andrea Buzás, Andrea Höll, Diána Dobsinszki – volunteers of Global Voices in Hungarian.

GV: Why was it important for you to volunteer on Global Voices?

SZP: I'm very interested in the situation in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Third World semi-dictatorships and dictatorships. During the spring of 2011, on a blogger trip to Germany, I met bloggers from Tunisia, Indonesia, Mongolia and other places, and I was very moved by the fact that we had the same occupation, we were members of the same generation, and how different were the consequences of blogging in Hungary and in those countries. I was looking for opportunities to advocate their causes in my country, or at least to draw attention to them. Global Voices is a very good opportunity to do this.

GV: What are the biggest challenges that GV's Hungarian team is facing?

SZP: The most challenging aspect is that topics from outside our borders that are not directly related to Hungary are less interesting to Hungarian readers, except for tabloid topics. For example, the sexual assault case in India was one of our most popular posts and was re-published by other sites as tabloid news. But many have also read the post on the death of the Iranian blogger Sattar Beheshti, which was a bit surprising to me, but I was happy that people at least heard about this terrible story in Hungary. Unfortunately, it's very hard to find readers interested in issues such as net freedom and free speech online.

GV: What was the most popular post or issue that Global Voices translated into Hungarian?

SZP: In addition to the ones mentioned above, the most popular were our translations on the Safarov case - because those were related to Hungary, since it was the Hungarian government that for economic advantages set free the Azeri Ramil Safarov who had killed an Armenian fellow student in Budapest. The axe murderer received amnesty from the Azeris right after being released, and he was celebrated as a hero – even the Azeri president's unofficial Facebook page cover was swapped for Safarov's photo. The translations told this story, and it was then circulated in the Hungarian online media.

Hungarian Radio Employee Defends Government on Hidden Camera Video

Atlatszo.hu — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 22:04:06 +0000

Atlatszo.hu published [hu] a hidden camera video of Fruzsina Tóth, a protester representing the students (she is also a first-year sociology student), talking to a woman who claimed to be a journalist of the Hungarian Radio. At the Dec. 17 protest, students demanded the Hungarian Radio to read their 5 + 1 points live. The hidden camera video was recorded when Ms. Tóth entered the building to hand the students’ petition to the radio's presenters. The woman on the video was defending the Hungarian government's decisions. (more…)