I just read that the last time the Hungarian national football team suffered such a devastating defeat was in 1932 when Austria beat the Hungarians 8-2. Actually, the 8-1 loss to the Dutch team tops the 1932 showing. In itself this defeat is a historic event in the annals of Hungarian football. Perhaps more important, […]
Today’s topic is the Hungarian police’s decision not to investigate the attack on a Roma family in Devecser, one of the villages that earlier fell victim to the red sludge that covered acres and acres of land around a factory producing aluminum. I didn’t deal with this specific incident except as one in a series […]
For consideration by the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, U.S. Helsinki Commission The situation of Roma in Hungary Human rights NGOs have consistently reported that Roma in Hungary are discriminated against in almost all fields of life, particularly in employment, education, housing, health care, and access to public places. Yet government representatives maintain […]
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, as the Senate chair of the Helsinki Commission, I have a longstanding interest in Central Europe. For many years the Helsinki Commission was one of the loudest and clearest voices to speak on behalf of those oppressed by communism and to call for democracy, human rights, and freedom from Soviet oppression. […]
Yesterday the neo-Nazis held a “review of the troops” on Heroes’ Square in Budapest on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the establishment of the notorious Hungarian Guard (Magyar Gárda). The police originally forbade the gathering, giving the usual excuse in such cases: the meeting would interfere with traffic. This was a pretty lame […]
I wanted to write about the national holiday, August 20, St. Stephen’s Day, but something else came up. Another incident of Gypsy-baiting. This time in Cegléd, a town not far from Kecskemét and Szolnok, about 70 km south of Budapest. It has a population of 38,000 with a fairly large Roma population that lives on […]
As hundreds of employees at MTV, Duna TV, and MR are being dismissed there is a huge outcry in the Hungarian media, which is not surprising given the collegial sympathies within the profession. The outcry is particularly strong in that small segment of the media that is critical of the present government. Papers close to […]
Some people on this blog noted that although the disaster occurred in the early afternoon on Monday, it took Viktor Orbán three days to visit the site. The commenter noted that a really savvy politician would have been on the spot immediately. I assume we all remember the disaster in New Orleans and the tardiness […]
Hungarian Spectrum 