Groves in the Dunakeszi marsh, photo courtesy of Péter Pacsuta

Vastagbőr blog, which always reflects ironically on Hungarian public life, shared the whole story (HUN):

There is something in Dunakeszi that is special. An “invisible” marsh. The interest of the shop with the bird sign made it invisible, because money dictates, while the trees, the bushes, the bugs, the birds are such outdated stuff.

We find the peat ponds of Dunakeszi at the northern border of Újpest, on the same line with Dunakeszi-alsó train station. The swampy, marshy area used to run from the Mogyoródi brook to Dunakeszi, dotted with small ponds. The swampy area and the masses of mosquito species kept humans away, so the wildlife remained untouched - except for anglers and holidaymakers, nobody disturbed the silence of the nature.

Then came the MAN. In the first half of 1998, because of the construction of the M0 motorway at Káposztásmegyer, the grounds of the area with bushes, willows and aspens were chopped down, the greenery was burned down together with the animals living there, and the small ponds were banked up. Of course by a foxy manner: they were waiting for the environmental permission, but they were constructing at the same time. So when the letter of the authority arrived, declaring that it was not allowed to build there, the road was almost ready. The penalty of a million or so was probably easily paid. (If there was any.)

As memory from the marsh only a small part remained, two small ponds with groves of bushes, willows and aspens around, but now it's marked out by Auchan for building a parking lot. For this it must be certified that at that place there's no marsh, because if it's on the contrary, the area is considered protected, no parking lot can be built there.

[quote from the law of 1996 about the protection of nature conservation areas]

Checkmate. Or rather, foul play!

Since the expert witness asked by the National Inspectorate for Environment, Nature and Water “certified” with soil samples that the habitat in question is totally dry, it's not qualified as marsh. […]

Contributors of the campaign against the constructions lead by Dr. György Kriska, Dr. György Szollát and by the organizations, Live Chain for Hungary (Élőlánc Magyarországért, HUN) and Dunakeszi Peat Pond Environmentalist Foundation (Tőzegtó Környezetvédelmi Alapítvány), prepared a map which shows the planned construction area in green and marks the places where video documentation has been made.

Dunakeszi tőzegláp nagyobb térképen való megjelenítése

One of the most viewed videos on the marsh is with an activist who's summarizing and reviewing the accuracy in the report of the expert witness of the inspectorate while standing right in a peat pond: “The expert made prospect holes and he observed that in the area of the prospect holes the soil is sandy and dry. I am now close to one of those prospect holes.”

Dr. György Kriska launched a website (HUN) dedicated to the Dunakeszi marsh, where he collected media mentions of the conflict, shared detailed research and photos about the flora and fauna of the marsh and its peat ponds. Also a Facebook page (HUN) titled “Let's save the Dunakeszi marsh!” has been created.

A peat pond during winter time, photo courtesy of György Kriska

Droli of Hiper, a blog dealing with shopping malls, highlighted (HUN) the other side in the debate, though he emphasized that destroying the environment is not a solution:

It must be admitted about the Auchan at Dunakeszi that it's a shopping mall with bustling trade, it's not an exaggeration to say it's among the first three in the country, too. So the people like the Dunakeszi Auchan. And that's where the troubles start.

Most of the people arrive by car, since the Dunakeszi Auchan is located at the end of the world. A solution would be a bicycle or a shopping tricycle, but we shouldn't have doubts, we know the transport culture of our compatriots, drivers and bicyclists would swear on each other, so it's not realistic. […] On foot it's far from everything, and we are familiar with BKV [public transportation]… So it's not by chance that customers arrive to the shopping center by car. The mall can say: I have to solve the problem, the parking lot is full, what should I do?

However, it doesn't authorize them to destroy a wonder of nature! […]

Pacsker, the blogger of Greenr, has also been supporting the campaign for the marsh: he has dedicated 14 posts (HUN) to the case. In his second post (HUN) about the marsh, he shared his vision of how this debate would affect the society:

[…] I'm saying that this marsh will set a precedent and unite the society - from the blogger to the environmental engineering student, to the tabloid press, to the higher leadership!

legalize by Ricardo Martins

There are groups of people advocating for the legalization of drugs, but what would that actually mean? From Hungary to Colombia, from youth to teachers, from cops and clergy, individuals and groups are taking to citizen media to put forth their arguments regarding this potentially controversial subject.

In Hungary, the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union has a broad spectrum of subjects they tackle, and one of them is the legalization of drugs. They've produced in the past year more than 70 short films, and in their words:

2009 has been a busy year of video advocacy work. The vast majority of our films dealt with drug policy issues, within the framework of the European Drug policy Initiative (EDPI) program. We filmed in Vienna at the protest organized by HCLU against the global drug war in front of the UN building, investigated the issue of drug tourism in Dutch border towns, introduced the upcoming heroin program in Denmark, showed the history and failure of strict Swedish prohibitionist drug policies and campaigned for the introduction of a needle exchange program in Stockholm. We successfully helped Russian NGOs who turned to the Global Fund after the Russian government denied the funding of needle exchange, and promoted the successful harm reduction programs that Kyrgyzystan introduced to stop the HIV epidemic.

Following, a video where the HCLU interviews leaders in drug policy reform at the New Mexico International Drug Policy Reform Conference of 2009, discussing about the future of drug control and what would be the implications of dropping prohibition laws:

In Colombia, last May saw the marihuana legalization march in the city, in also the nationwide event to keep the personal dose legal. Prolific Video Blogger Juan David Escobar was at both, and brings us some pictures of the “personal dose of personality” event in Medellin as well as the march for the legalization of marihuana.

He writes:

In Colombia, one of the most important drug production country, and of course a symbol for nearly four decades of war, consumption, violence caused by marijuana, cocaine and heroin trafficking. On March 26 was a call in the main cities and their public places, for people that inhabit this corner of South America, to meet for taking a picture, where all can show and take our personality dose, like a way of individual expression for freedom in a country that offers little liberties.

In Mexico, high-school students in Morelos get the opportunity to debate about the legalization of drugs in a classroom setting in this 6 part series (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6) of the debate by anivdelain. Following is the conclusion, where the moderator wraps up by saying that if the legalization law is passed, that it is up to each individual to inform themselves on whether they will use drugs or not and to make sure they use it for “good”.

LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, states on their website that they are against prohibition because it just doesn't work: in spite of incarcerations, strict laws and money spent on the fight against drugs, they are currently cheaper, easier to get and more potent. In the following video, cops join clergy in an unlikely pairing discussing the war on drugs, where they talk about the role of clergy in the fight against drugs, by giving drug users counselling and helping them by giving them hope, instead of taking it away by imprisoning them:

Is your country's law system considering the depenalization or legalization on drugs? What is the citizen's perspective on this and what is your personal opinion? Will continued criminalization of drug users help stop trafficking and drug use, or is there another way out?

The opening ceremony of the season in Pécs was January 10, but debates had started right away when the preparations had been launched. The Western Hungarian city doesn't lack bad rumors about organization, renovations and construction related to the title. After the ceremony on Sunday the online debate became more intense, and even on the Facebook page of the cultural capital (HUN) netizens discussed articles and comments criticizing the details of the whole process going on.

Some citizens instead focused on promoting the city by themselves: there's a pool of Pécs bloggers at ekf-pecs.hu (HUN), and a photoblog at pecs2u.eu collecting and sharing the image of Pécs, as the citizens like Leslie Szendrő see it.

The Djami of Pasha Gazi Kasim is the symbol of the city's cultural diversity. It was built during the Turkish rule in the 16th century, then was turned into a church by the Jesuits. Photo courtesy of Leslie Szendrő

The slow start of the preparations was partly attributed to the difficulties at the municipality: the mayor of the city, László Toller, had a serious car accident in 2006—not long before the final decision on the European Capital of Culture—after which he was in a coma for weeks, and in 2009 he was officially declared incapacitated. Péter Tasnádi succeeded Toller as the mayor of Pécs, but in 2008 he announced that he was suffering from a serious disease; he decided to continue his work, however, but, unfortunately, died at the beginning of 2009 (HUN). After some inefficient by-elections, Zsolt Páva from the party in opposition was elected mayor in May.

Éva S. Balogh of Hungarian Spectrum commented on the Pécs mayoral election's result last year:

[…] What will happen in Pécs? Páva is promising to look into the alleged corruption cases but I doubt that he will suddenly find the billions lost. The government cannot “punish” Pécs even if they wanted to: next year Pécs will be one of two “European cultural capitals.” It would be a terrible blow to the country's reputation if Pécs were as unprepared next year as it is now. The relationship between the two parties in the city is not as vicious as in some other towns. […]

The mentioned “unpreparedness” provided inspiration to the activists of a fake political party: they started a website called pecs2100.hu (HUN) to make fun of the official pecs2010.hu by listing strange programs and sharing fake information about the city, for example referring to it as a city called Peć in Kosovo.

Cathedral in Pécs, photo courtesy of József Ottófi

There were discussions going on about the concert and conference hall connected to the project, still far from ready and about the constructions still taking place. The day before the opening ceremony, an architect, Miklós Koós, published a post with photos (HUN) about the central Széchenyi Square and other places. He wrote:

[…] Only a few of the public spaces have been constructed, but this is the smaller problem, the bigger is that Széchenyi Square, which is considered to be the heart of the city, was handed over temporarily, it's not that it was received well by the citizens of Pécs, but they were by line and level upset and they are peppery, because what they saw there was a dilettante work. […]

The Turkish Djami during the opening ceremony, photo courtesy of pinterpi

Finally, the day of the opening ceremony arrived. The event started with the speech of the mayor, Zsolt Páva, and of the Hungarian prime minister, Gordon Bajnai. (The whole ceremony is available at the Hungarian public TV's website.)

Placido Domingo, the chief patron of the 2010 European Capital of Culture (ECC) programme in Pécs, greeted the celebrating people with a video message, in which he referred to the multicultural background of the city by saying: “The richness of Pécs has captured me, too. Ancient Rome, Christianity and Islam live together here. Just like Renaissance and the Age of Reason, la belle époque of the 19th century and the relics of 20th century modern art.”

Annamária Apró reported (HUN) from the opening ceremony for UnivPécs (University of Pécs) magazine's blog (HUN):

[…] Placido Domingo is also sending a word on the screens as the patron of the ECC. Afterwards, big white puppets are starting to march and behind them loads of pupils, one after another, there's sound and light, though I can follow this mostly on the screens, the stage is totally hidden. The actors, dancers and musicians are representing the important periods of the history of Pécs, the background to this are the changing patterns painted on the Djami, the painting with the lights is really enthralling. On the stage the Roman Age, the Paleochristian Period, the foundation of the university is appearing till we arrive to our times. […]

The fireworks fading in from the mist at the floodlit square are spectacular, as the whole opening ceremony, there're no bloopers, finally everything's succeeding, the TV spectators are surely content, too. I just don't feel like it is addressing me, the citizen of Pécs, that it wants to touch me, involve me, make me not only stand and stare at what's happening around me, but to want to embrace the city, my city, the cultural capital.

At the end of 2009, Hungarian and Slovak citizens started an online campaign which will turn into more visible formats in January 2010. A Facebook group called Hungarians and Slovaks (HUN, SLO, ENG) already exists “For the good relations between Hungarians and Slovaks!”, and now they're also supporting a new group called Štastný nový rok, Slovensko! / Boldog Új Évet Magyarország! (SLO, HUN, “Happy New Year, Slovakia!/Happy New Year, Hungary!).

The description of the group — which has its status updates in Slovak and Hungarian — says (HUN, SLO):

Who wants to live in continuous tension with his neighbour? What's the reason for always looking for the other's faults, and how is it disturbing if someone's always observing our faults?!

The opposition is seemingly becoming more and more serious, and to ease the tension deriving from it we're initiating communication aiming the society, because our conviction is that the tension is mostly generated by actual politics.

We submit that in the judgement of each other, the two countries' civil society can be influenced positively by the courtesy of a bilateral campaign. […]

The main goal of this campaign is to spread a simple New Year's message in both countries through all channels of communication, and involve NGOs and ordinary citizens in saying Happy New Year to each other. For this two websites were started for Hungarian and Slovakian supporters: boldogujevetmagyarorszag.sk is the Hungarian site ending with .sk, the Slovak country code, and stastnynovyrokslovensko.hu is for Slovak-speaking people signed with the Hungarian country code. Also, two videos have recorded for each country:

So far, ReTRo is the only blogger who has commented on the start-up in Hungary by writing a short story (HUN) about neighbours hating each other, but whose relationship starts getting better by a snow bank shoveled away by chance from the hated neighbour's house.

Maybe he wasn't awake yet, or the snow just covered his dislike, or simply he overlooked it, but he didn't notice that he had shoveled the snow not in front of the neighbour's gate, but away from it. He shrugged it away by thinking this would be the good act for the week. He explained this to Sanyi, when she simply said he was stupid to work in the place of the hated neighbour.

In the evening when they got home, the snow was freshly swept away from their gate. The neighbour has thanked him. It went like this for three days. They met on Saturday first. With snow shovels in their hands. They greeted each other. They started to chat…

By Monday the snow melted. Something ended up…

…or has just begun.

[…]

Oh, yes and there's a start-up just launched by the name „Boldog Új Évet Magyarország! - Štastný Nový rok, Slovensko!”. We could start with snow shoveling…

In reference to the problem of network, an official statement will be released. We beg your patience!

It was not the tweet of T-Mobile, and not even the interruption of their service, which later generated a vivid online discussion, but the reaction of Vodafone Hungary to the phenomenon. The first step was re-tweeting an answer of their online marketing department employee. Tamás Müller, who was managing the Vodafone Hungary Twitter account (HUN) that day, tweeted at 11:49 AM (HUN):

Ok, ring us up! ;) RT @tmobilehungary In reference to the problem of network, an official statement will be released. We beg your patience!

Hungarian internet users were very much on the spot, and they soon discovered that Vodafone Hungary started a Google AdWords campaign related to the outage of T-Mobile. Orosznyet of BurninGames (HUN) posted a screenshot of the advertisement that appeared when he googled up “T-Mobile broke down” - and he also commented on it (HUN):

[…] The point is that Vodafone kept its end up and reacted fast. They set up a Google AdWords advertisement: “With us you can still reach your friends!” […] I like the style of Vodafone, even if it's a big company, they're not forcing the office blurb, but the one that everybody uses. […]

The story continued some days later with the dismissal of the re-tweeting Vodafone employee. The author of Webisztán (HUN) - one of the most relevant IT-related Hungarian blogs - Hírbehozó (also known as hh), published an interview (HUN) with Tamás Müller:

As you all know, Vodafone dismissed one of their newly employed colleagues in online marketing. The reason was that during the time of last Friday's big T-offline, he dared to write on Twitter this message.

The news of his firing evoked steady revulsion among the readers of Index (in the meantime commenting has been disabled [to the article of Index.hu]) and among twitterers, too. After this I contacted the protagonist of the case, Tamás Müller… […]

After discussing the corporate use of social media in general, Tamás Müller re-told the story of his tweet and the Google advertisements to Hírbehozó. “In the judgement of Vodafone in that given situation, taking those steps hadn't been ethical, and since I hadn't agreed on them within doors, they dismissed me from my job,” he said.

Later on Hungarian twitterers started to re-tweet Müller's message (HUN):

So, yes. Unfortunately, I'm looking for a new job because of the Vodafone-RT http://bit.ly/53O5Dt: RT this, if you'd like to help. ;)

The group of Müller's supporters is still growing, and now they are discussing, collecting and producing content related to his case on a Facebook page.

Some days ago Mátyás Dobó (also known as Doransky), another expert in online activity-related affairs, published (HUN) a sort of a study on the case, which he prepared on a request from Vodafone.

The post of Doransky right away generated reactions in the Hungarian blogosphere. Bloggers of Karmamedia (HUN) wrote this (HUN):

[…] We heavily criticized poor Telekom, that it would be the time of updating their crisis communication manual, and think over their behavior in online communities. Favored by fortune, we can suggest the same to Voda. Without reference to Tamás Müller: unless there are no frameworks for using social media, tomorrow the same can happen to anybody. […]

Explaining his doubts, hh of Webisztán wrote an “unsponsored” post (HUN), in which he accused Vodafone of pushing positive PR by requesting a case study from an expert, leaking this information, and then “arranging” for the article to be published. Hírbehozó called the organizational establishment of Vodafone “arrogant” and added:

[…] Second, I take it as a blurring that Doransky adopted the argument of Vodafone, according to which it wasn't the ominous tweet, but the AdWords advertisements that blew the gasket at the management of the mobile provider. To me it's totally evident that they're emphasizing this because they want to act as if they wouldn't have ever had any problem with Twitter. […]

As for the breakdown of the T-Mobile service, according to index.hu (HUN), János Winkler, the deputy director of the company, announced that their loss was 700 million HUF, together with the recompensation to their costumers.

In January this year, at the time of a debate on introducing a new law against domestic violence, the Hungarian Spectrum blogged:

President Sólyom doesn't seem to be too concerned, although according to Hungarian sociologists every week at least one woman dies as a result of domestic violence. And that statistic doesn't include old people and children who are abused or even killed. There was something on the books allegedly dealing with the issue, but it was totally ineffectual. Police couldn't act on the spot and weeks might go by before the case ended up in court. By that time, the plaintiff could be dead. Moreover, the police rarely acted. They simply didn't want to get involved in “family squabbles.” It was, for example, totally useless to call the police and report threats. The answer was: as long as there is no blood no action can be taken. I remember one specific case when such threats were uttered by a young boy against a young girl. The girl's family reported the situation. The police did nothing. A few days later the girl was dead. […]

Because of the refusal of the law in January by László Sólyom, the Hungarian president, the law was changed and the Hungarian Parliament voted on it in June again, and it came into force in October. The law, which has changed the regulation of limiting the freedom of movement to the person accused of committing violent acts, is still criticized (HUN) as not being effective enough.

This month, Hungarian NGOs joined (HUN) the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign. Amnesty International Hungary started a Facebook event where they published their two campaign videos from 2005.

Giving the title of a Hungarian singer Zséda's new song dealing with domestic violence (”Behind Doors”) to his post, tegla07 wrote this (HUN) on his blog:

[…] You're walking on the street and you have no other possibility: you are either one of them, or not. You can't do anything else. You can't be independent - you are among them, or next to them. But a lot of people, and among the lot there are more and more, who try to live as if all this didn't exist. Until it turns out that their best friend, a friend of a friend, a colleague, a cleaning lady or a secretary, a female director, teacher, CEO, is beaten at home…

And why? Every situation is different, every fate is unique, but. But there are rules, there are limits which are impossible to step across. There are situations when the “why” fades, and you can't ponder over it - and mostly, you can't judge.

You can't judge somebody because of her “weakness” (weakness? she stands up to something that you, probably, would never be able to), because of her “powerlessness” (powerlessness? she re-builds herself every morning from nothing)… If somebody's hurt, there's no question there. You must get there, from anywhere you are. You must hug her, to let her know that she's valuable. To let her know that she deserves something different. […]

Nobody, nobody deserves those slaps. Nobody, nobody can think that he has club-law in his family. Nobody, nobody can just pass by a humiliated woman. Nobody, never has the right to speak in another person's ear about a woman hurt… When will we understand this?