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In recent years I have become increasingly despondent and alarmed at developments in Hungary, the latest of which were outlined by András Schiff (A shrine to our Nazi past, 12 December). From 1991 to 2000 I lived and worked in Hungary, teaching film and media studies at most of the major Hungarian universities. On returning to the UK, I organised and/or participated in many events celebrating and promoting the film culture of Hungary. I also wrote a number of articles and one book on the topic of Hungarian film (with another to be published soon).

In November 2009 the Hungarian government of the day awarded me the Pro Cultura Hungarica medal for my services to Hungarian culture and the arts. The presentation of this award, at the Hungarian Cultural Centre in London, in the presence of a government representative, the Hungarian ambassador and the Hungarian representative for Unesco remains a vivid and proud memory. However, in protest at the increasingly reactionary and retrograde developments in Hungary, in particular the policies of the present government led by Viktor Orbán, I am returning my medal. I urge other recipients of this award, in the UK and elsewhere, to consider doing likewise.
John Cunningham
Adlington, Lancashire

source: theGuardian

Every bureaucracy tends to overregulate, but what has been going on since the Orbán government came into power defies imagination. Regulation on top of regulation in all aspects of life, which naturally makes not only the individual’s life ever more complicated but also negatively affects business activity and hence economic growth.

more: HungarianSpectrum

(Senator Cardin, in the US Congressional Record, December 11 2014, gives a temperate but extremely alarming summary of the ongoing events in the country that is rapidly unravelling democracy while enjoying full membership in the European Union.)

Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, earlier this year I chaired a Helsinki Commission hearing on the situation in Hungary. Today, I would like to revisit some of the issues addressed by our witnesses.

Since the April 2010 elections, Hungary has undertaken the most dramatic legal transformation that Europe has seen in decades. A new Constitution was passed with votes of the ruling party alone, and even that has already been amended five times. More than 700 new laws have been passed, including laws on the media, religion, and civic associations. There is a new civil code and a new criminal code. There is an entirely new electoral framework. The magnitude and scope of these changes have understandably put Hungary under a microscope.

At the Helsinki Commission’s hearing in March, I examined concerns that these changes have undermined Hungary’s system of democratic checks and balances, independence of the judiciary, and freedoms of the media and religion. I also received testimony about rising revisionism and extremism. I heard from Jozsef Szajer, a Member of the European Parliament who represented the Hungarian Government at the hearing. Princeton constitutional law expert Kim Lane Scheppelle, Dr. Paul Shapiro from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Sylvana Habdank- Kolaczkowska from Freedom House presented compelling testimony.

Unfortunately, developments in Hungary remain troubling.

Even though Hungary’s religion law was tweaked after the Constitutional Court struck down parts of it, it retains a discriminatory two-tier system. Moreover, the Parliament is empowered with the extraordinary and, for all practical purposes, unreviewable power to decide what is and what is not a religion.

This month, the government announced it is launching an investigation into the Methodist Evangelical Church, a church persecuted during communist times. Today, the Methodist Evangelical Church is known for its outreach to Roma, work with the homeless and is one of the largest charitable organizations in Hungary. As I noted at the Helsinki Commission hearing in March, it is also one of the hundreds of religious groups stripped of official recognition after the passage of Hungary’s new religion law.

The church has now complied with submitting the necessary number of supporters required by the law and, as a reply, the government has announced an unidentified “expert” will conduct an investigation into the church’s beliefs and tenets. This step only reinforces fears that parliamentary denial of recognition as a so-called “Accepted Church” opens the door for further repressive measures.

more: GovTop Network

On November 14, 2013 the General Assembly of Budapest voted for the a local law that would criminalize street homeless in a large part of the city.

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Although András Schiff is commendable for his piano playing and his passion (Hungarians must face their Nazi past, not venerate it, 11 December), he does not seem to know much about the last 20 years in Europe. Criticising the christening of a new statue of Admiral Horthy in Budapest, he writes: “There are no Hitler statues in Germany, and in Austria they are constitutionally forbidden. The same is true of Mussolini in Italy, Pétain in France, Ion Antonescu in Romania or Josef [sic] Tiso in Slovakia. None of them is being commemorated and extolled.”

These assertions are all wrong, whether mildly or wildly, except with regard to France. There are countless Hitler statues left in Germany and Austria – just not in public. Austria bans glorifications of Hitler, but not neutral or negative statues; the same law’s punishments were weakened in 1992, amid a neo-Nazi revival, by President Kurt Waldheim, who won the Iron Cross in Russia and of whom the late Austrian politician Fred Sinowatz said: “Let us acknowledge that Waldheim did not serve in the SA, only his horse did.”

There are countless Mussolinis in Italy, whether in cellars, in enclosed villa gardens, or at Termini station in Rome, where a 2011 statue of Pope John Paul II was so widely described as Mussolini in pontifical dress that the face was replaced. As for Jozef Tiso in Slovakia, the Archbishop of Trnava celebrated a memorial mass for him in 2008, and many have urged Tiso’s sainthood.

more: theGuardian