Global Voices » Marietta Le

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.

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 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].

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. [...]

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 Protesters Occupy Bridge, Three Students Arrested

Marietta Le — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 02:26:53 +0000

Three protesters were arrested Wednesday night when students occupied a Budapest bridge. The grassroots student union HaHa confirmed [hu] they were students moderating a forum held on the Chain Bridge. Dozens of protesters waited at a Budapest police department for their release until 2 AM on Thursday. The students were released after a civil infraction proceeding, receiving a formal warning.

On Wednesday, high school and university students protested in Hungary against the cut-backs in higher education admission quotas; at many high schools, students held sit-in strikes, observed minutes of silence and protested for their future. X Communications Centre (XKK) published [hu] a map and list of the events; below is a screenshot:

The day of the protests in Budapest ended with two student events’ participants marching to the Chain Bridge, where they held a forum, inviting [hu] the Minister of Human Resources and the Prime Minister to guarantee that the students’ demands are met. When the protesters started to leave the bridge the police accompanying the march arrested [hu] three students who had earlier moderated the conversations with megaphones.

Although they were released a few hours later many netizens pointed at the ‘fun fact’ that the Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had once also been arrested for fighting for democratic rights at the time of Hungary's transition to democracy. One Million for the Freedom of Press in Hungary, also known as Milla, shared [hu] this meme using a photo of Orbán being arrested in 1988 and the photo of one of the students arrested now:

The Hungarian government seemed to be willing to comply with the students’ demands, as on Wednesday at noon it was announced that the 2013 undergraduate admission quota for tuition-free higher education would be set back to 55,000 students [hu] instead of the 10,480 published before the protests. Students made clear on many platforms that they were aware of the need to roll out tuition fees in the Hungarian higher education, but they stressed that the fast-pace decision-making was not professional and the restructuring of Hungarian higher education needed a thorough preparation.

HaHa demanded [hu] that the government make decisions with the involvement of all stakeholders and come up with a better financial plan to ensure the sustainability of universities after the quotas are set back to a higher level.

A government spokesman said on Wednesday that the admission point requirements would be published before Christmas [hu]. Admission points are calculated for each high school student on the basis of their grades, final exams and other obtained qualifications. On Thursday afternoon, however, the Ministry of Human Resources announced [hu] they wouldn't publish the requirements this year. Adult education, applied economic studies, communication and media studies, human resources studies, international economics and law are still not the government's favorites; there would be no tuition-free slots [hu] allocated for them.

Hungarian Students Call for Nationwide Strike

Marietta Le — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 23:25:53 +0000

Last week, Hungarian high school and college students protested from Monday to Friday. This week, the young people are still demanding that the government set university admission quotas to a reasonable level and help those from lower income households to access higher education.

On Monday, thousands of students marched again on the streets of the Hungarian capital. After protesting in front of the Parliament [hu], they went to the Hungarian Radio's headquarters to demand an announcement of the 5 + 1 points, which they had decided on during one of the last week's forums. Kettős Mérce blog reported [hu] that eventually the Radio's presenters talked about the students’ demands at 9 PM, but did not read the list on air.

The march ended with a forum at the University of Theatre and Film Arts, where the following video was recorded. The video calls everyone affected by the cuts in higher education quotas, etc., to join the “nationwide higher education strike” [hu] on Wednesday.

From 1:28 on the video, the students are shouting “We call every sympathizer and the affected ones to join. [We demand] a general strike. Nothing about us without us.” And the last sentence is repeated many times until 2:36.

The students, among other things, are demanding a more professional decision-making process in solving the problems of the Hungarian higher education. One of the reasons for this particular demand is PM Viktor Orbán's appearance in a downtown pub on Saturday with a group of allegedly unknown students – those who are definitely not members of any currently protesting student unions; afterwards, he said there wouldn't be any admission quotas. This statement was later clarified by the Minister of Human Resources, who said that students would have to meet “quality requirements” [hu].

Hungarian Blogger Leaks Secret Video on Illegal Voter Database

Marietta Le — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 22:18:36 +0000

Gery Greyhound published a documentary [hu] on his Tumblr blog, about the ‘making of’ an illegal voter database in Pécs in 2009, when the city held a mid-term mayoral election. A similar leak took place in 2010, when a voice recording of Fidesz party director Gábor Kubatov was published online, revealing that the party had a registry of voting preferences of tens of thousands of voters. The case was referred to as the “Kubatov list.” Mr. Kubatov also appears in the current documentary, which was allegedly published by a person who participated in the production of the video meant for internal circulation.

Students Rally All Over Hungary to Save Tuition-Free Education

Marietta Le — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 22:01:33 +0000

In Hungary, the once free-for-all education system has always been a subject of heated debates. This week, the debates have grown into student protests that are taking place all over the country.

The protests began on Monday, Dec. 10, and have so far continued through Thursday, following the government's announcement [hu] that in 2013 it would provide state-financed education to only 10,480 undergraduate students. Those who cannot afford to pay tuition are offered to take student loans, while the “lucky” ones have to sign contracts promising to stay and work in Hungary upon graduation for several years in exchange for their state-financed studies.

Hundreds of Hungarian students have taken to the streets to protest against these ‘student contracts’ (an English-language sample [.pdf] is here) – as well as against the significant cutbacks in higher education admission quotas (in 2011, the undergraduate quota was 40,610 students; in 2012 – 33,927 students).

The new figures also demonstrate the government's stance on students majoring in humanities, social sciences, law, and economics: their numbers are to decrease. The government seems to believe that the humanities and social studies are of a less productive value for the country, while degrees in law and economics normally lead to well-paid jobs and these students can, therefore, afford to finance their education [hu]. In June 2012, the Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán talked [hu] about the “humanities students [spending their time in the pubs].” The quota of state-financed informatics, engineering and natural science students, on the other hand, was increased in 2011, according to the student news site Eduline [hu].

The current protests [hu] in Budapest and other big cities were organized by the grassroots student union called Hallgatói Hálózat (“Network of Students”) or HaHa, the National Union of Students (HÖOK), the Network of Academics (Oktatói Hálózat, OHA), the Network for the Freedom of Curriculum (Hálózat a Tanszabadságért, HAT) and the Network of Parents (Szülői Hálózat).

Up until now, the official student unions have kept a distance from the grassroots student union and its initiatives. Members of the latter occupied a university in Budapest [hu] in February, but their actions were condemned [hu] by the university's official student union. Now all student unions seem united in their support for self-organized protests.

The protests started on Monday in the southern Hungarian city of Szeged, where students held a sit-in at a government office:

Later on, HaHa and the other organizations held a forum at one of the ELTE University's campuses, where students decided on the five-plus-one [hu] core issues to promote:

1. We demand a sweeping reform in the public and higher education!

2. Admission quotas are to be set back to at least the 2011 levels!

3. Stop the decrease of funding, compensate the withdrawals!

4. Eliminate the student contract!

5. Don't limit the universities’ autonomy!

+1: The sweeping reform should provide a chance for students from low-income families to receive higher education.

On Monday, the protesters blocked a bridge over the Danube River, then marched to the Parliament, where the “five-plus-one points” were announced, and then they finished the rally by blocking another bridge. According to Eduline [hu], the rally in Budapest started at around 3PM and ended at around 8:30PM at Adam Clark Square.

Kettős Mérce blog summarized the outcome of the Monday protests in a post titled “The future has started” [hu]. They pointed out that the rally wasn't only a sign of a strong democratic attitude present among the young citizens, but the “five-plus-one points” symbolized solidarity with the poor:

[...] The victory of yesterday wasn't only the thing that will be printed on every daily's front page, but two other things as well. Yesterday's protest came off in the democracy running at its fullest; always choosing the most democratic solutions, even if the organizers didn't want exactly the [same] thing that happened. Because the organizers wanted to occupy a university. But the majority of the people wanted [to occupy] a bridge. And the majority of the organizers argued in vain; democracy made the decision after a debate, after arguments, and was not led by the words of one person, but followed the decision of the really autonomous people who weren't influenced by anything.

But the victory of yesterday, in addition to this, was when the extra point came up next to HaHa's five points that had been drafted in advance. Someone came up with the idea that students shouldn't only talk about themselves, but also about the whole society. About social mobility, that if someone is poor, he/she isn't worth the same, that the education system today, yesterday and ten years ago has been confined and is becoming more and more confined, favoring the people who live in better conditions. Yesterday, this point was up against the point that said that competition was to be the basic principle of public education. And this young crowd articulated its opinion and unanimously agreed on social solidarity, and unanimously said that competition should not be the first standpoint in obtaining knowledge. [...]

The strange position that the official student unions had taken was demonstrated by the reaction of the president of Szeged University's student union, Márk Török, who tried to convince the students gathering to join the sit-in that their act was illegal. HaHa reported this on their Facebook page and demanded [hu] real representation of the students’ interests. To help the young citizens, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee posted on their blog the FAQ [hu] on the right of assembly.

On Tuesday, high school students also started to organize themselves, starting Facebook pages [hu] and protesting. HaHa reported that high school students went to the streets in the south-western Hungarian city of Pécs and in the south-eastern city of Békéscsaba as well. HaHa promised to continue to protest on Facebook [hu] in response to the press release of the Ministry of Human Resources:

[...] According to the government, what they are doing now is an “investment in the future.” No. What they are doing now is an infallible investment in a disastrous future. They are building a country where only the wealthiest children can receive higher education, a country from which the talented youth are escaping en masse, where the proportion of those holding a diploma is a snippet compared to that in the developed countries, and where there will never be a boom.

We admonish the government to stop lying and to start conceiving that what they are doing to the education, they are doing it not only against themselves but against the homeland as well. We won't allow them to take away our future!

Anti-Fascism Unites Hungary

Marietta Le — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 23:05:14 +0000

On Sunday, Dec. 2, thousands of Hungarians stood united against anti-Semitism at a protest rally in Budapest. Politicians from the ruling and opposition parties were there, too, speaking up against the controversial remarks by MP Márton Gyöngyösi, a member of the far-right party Jobbik, which has nearly 17 percent of the seats in the Hungarian Parliament. Gyöngyösi, on Nov.26, called “for Jews to be registered on lists as threats to national security.”

This was the second such rally. The first one took place on Nov. 27, but was nowhere near as numerous, with just a few hundred people attending.

A foundation called All Together For Jerusalem had organized the Dec. 2 protest [hu], which, according to Reuters, drew around 10,000 people. (For the sake of comparison, according to the Hungarian police's estimates [hu], on the National Holiday in October, ca. 150,000 attended the government-organized event, 20,000 showed up for the citizen movement's protest, and a couple of thousand people came to the far-right party's rally.)

Gyöngyösi later apologized for his remarks, but the public debate on the far right gaining more and more support in Hungary has been re-opened – and, to some extent, it has united the Hungarian nation.

Kopó of Koppány mondja blog wrote [hu] that this was the end of Jobbik playing it nice in the Parliament:

[...] If he [Gyöngyösi] wasn't a Nazi, he wouldn't say anything like this. If Jobbik wasn't a Nazi party, they would hoot him, or at least distance themselves from him, and disqualify him from the party. But this didn't happen. Because Márton Gyöngyösi is a Nazi, and Jobbik is a Nazi party. [...]

Balázs Böcskei of the Institute for a Democratic Alternative (IDEA) wondered in a post on his blog [hu] why none of the 386 MPs left the room when “the darkness drenched them” (i.e., when Gyöngyösi was making his notorious statements).

Hungarian Spectrum wrote that on Nov. 27, one day after the incident, four MPs, including the presiding speaker, protested in the Parliament by wearing yellow Stars of David on their clothes – and so did some of the protesters outside, at the rally that took place that same day, as well as during the Dec. 2 rally.

A yellow Star of David on a protester's coat. Dec. 2, 2012. Photo by Redjade, used with permission.

At the Dec. 2 rally, the following politicians addressed the crowd: the current faction leader of the governing conservative Fidesz Party, Antal Rogán; the former ‘acting PM' Gordon Bajnai; and the Socialist Party's chairman, Attila Mesterházy. The largest Hungarian online citizen movement, ‘One Million for the Freedom of Press in Hungary’ [hu, en], noted on their blog [hu] that the time had come for Hungarians to think over the situation in the country:

[...] The joint protest is a good opportunity to express not only our indignation and the deep denouncement of the Nazi speech revoking the darkest times, but also a chance to ask ourselves this question: why and how has Hungary got so far that today the educated world is a shocked observer of what's going on in the Parliament in Budapest. [...]

Protesters at the Dec. 2 rally. Photo by Redjade, used with permission.

The bloggers of Kettős Mérce pointed out [hu] that the speakers hardly talked about the issues concerning Roma or LGBTQ people in Hungary. The bloggers also suggested to put the blame for the current situation in the country on all political parties:

[...] And though many sentences have been said about what kind of mistakes committed by the Hungarian right wing and the conservatives resulted in Hungary getting this far; it was sad that the mistakes of the Hungarian left wing and the liberals have hardly been mentioned. Yet they share the responsibility!

If next time someone is protesting against discrimination and fascism, we hope these things will come to their minds, so then we will have a chance to attend an even better protest.

Hundreds Rally Against Anti-Semitism in Hungary

Marietta Le — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 01:09:00 +0000

On Nov. 27, hundreds of people gathered in front of the Parliament in Budapest (photos) to protest a Hungarian far-right MP's call “for Jews to be registered on lists as threats to national security.” Some of the protesters wore yellow Stars of David. The rally took place despite the removal of the Facebook event page for it by Facebook admins.

(more…)

Hungary: Why Do We Have To Pay Attention To China?

Marietta Le — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 22:51:04 +0000

‘Az igazi Mao’ blog [hu] is trying to draw attention to the contemporary China that Hungarian citizens may not be too familiar with; its title refers to a Hungarian experimental documentary, The Real Mao, which tells a fake story of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong. In a recent entry, ‘Az igazi Mao’ blog shared an infographic [hu] comparing the size, the economy, the population, as well as the number of luxury cars sold and junk food restaurants built, in Hungary and in China.

Hungary: Cycle Chic Summit in Budapest

Marietta Le — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 21:51:47 +0000

International Cycle Chic Bloggers @ Budapest. Photo by Mikael Colville Andersen, founder of the first cycle chic blog from Copenhagen. Used with permission.

Representatives of Amsterdam Cycle Chic, Berlin Cycle Chic, Copenhagen Cycle Chic, Vienna Cycle Chic and Vitória Cycle Chic gathered for a mini-summit in Budapest. This cycle chic event, organized by Hungarian Cycle Chic bloggers, was tied to a street fashion show. More photos are available here [hu].

Hungary: Parliament Forced to Take Domestic Violence Seriously

Marietta Le — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 22:41:05 +0000

According to NGOs fighting domestic violence [hu], about 70 women are killed by their partners or ex-partners every year in Hungary.

Domestic violence is an extremely severe problem in the Hungarian society, and Hungarians struggling to raise awareness of the issue were outraged when it turned out that a public proposal to put it on the Hungarian Parliament's agenda was deemed so unimportant that the parliamentary discussion was scheduled to take place in the middle of the night.

Facebook page ‘Bring attention to the issue of domestic violence in the Hungarian Parliament’ wrote on Sep. 6 [hu]:

Between March 1 and May 1 of 2012, a total of 103,159 signatures were collected to stop domestic violence. A total of 50,000 valid signatures were needed to make the Parliament to schedule the debate about incorporating domestic violence as a separate offence. The result of the unprecedented cooperation is that the Parliament will hold the debate on penalizing domestic violence on Sep. 11 at 3 o'clock in the morning.

The Hungarian MPs did debate the public proposal (they ended up starting early, before 10 PM), but some of their comments caused public outrage. Especially remarkable were the comments of MP István Varga from the governing Fidesz party.

Eva Balogh of Hungarian Spectrum shared his overall ‘bests':

The learned member of parliament opined: “The most important calling for women and ladies, especially for young ladies, is to give birth. It is obvious that if everybody gave birth to two, three or four children, a gift to the fatherland, everybody would be happy. After that task is over, every woman can fulfill herself and may work at different jobs.” And if that weren’t enough, Varga proposed that “if three or four or five children were born, members of the family would respect each other more and then the question of violence within the family wouldn’t even come up.”

Kettős Mérce shared a collection [hu] of the best remarks in Hungarian. The day after, HVG.hu news site reported [hu], a spontaneous rally was organized on Facebook against the Parliament's decision, which rejected the proposal, and against Mr. Varga's remarks. The organizers of the demonstration wrote [en]:

Last night at 2 am the parliament rejected a people's proposal on the criminalization of domestic violence. Istvan Varga, Fidesz MP in Parliament, discussing whether domestic violence should be a distinct criminal offence in the Criminal Code [following a petition signed by over 100,000 people making it mandatory for parliament to discuss it]: “the Criminal Code cannot prevent domestic violence. maybe mothers should return to raising kids instead, have 2-3 or rather 4-5 chil dren and then it would make more sense that spouses respect each other more and domestic violence would not even come up.” He then said it's all because of emancipation that women have forgotten to have kids, so there are fewer and fewer Hungarians now. We contest the misogynist discussion that represented women as incubators, against the idea that domestic violence is a consequence of women's emancipation and against the attempt of boycotting the public opinion due to the late night parliamentary discussion.

X Communications Centre, which is using methods of communication to generate positive changes in social, ethnic and democratic issues, started a viral campaign with a video featuring Hungarian celebrities and politicians, titled “A real man wouldn't hurt a woman.” A rendition of this slogan – “A real woman wouldn't hurt a man” – also went viral, observing the fact that men can also be victims of domestic violence. (X Communication Centre'sFacebook photo album with people holding placards with their slogan is here.)

Following the significant public pressure (as well as plenty of memes with Mr. Varga's words), the Parliament was eventually forced to treat domestic violence seriously. After the ruling Fidesz party changed its position, a week later, the retake of the initiative was supported by 366 deputies in favour, none against, with ten deputies abstaining, reported [hu] Politics.hu news site.