Police clashed in downtown Erzsébet tér on Saturday afternoon with a few hundred demonstrators who gathered to protest at Thursday’s court ruling dissolving the Magyar Gárda paramilitary group.
One of the 216 detained was Gábor Vona, head of the Gárda and its affiliated radical right-wing party Jobbik. He was released early Sunday morning. Most of those detained were released Saturday evening.
Police had banned the demonstration, as well as similar planned protests in other parts of Budapest.
Police used teargas to disperse the gathering after some protesters threw beer bottles and other missiles at them, as several Magyar Gárda members and supporters attacked the police. Most of the demonstrators were taken away individually, rather then driven off en masse.
Police later launched criminal proceedings against four people and charged others with hooliganism and disobedience, said spokeswoman Éva Tafferner. One of those arrested had attacked police so crudely that the prosecutor’s office kept him in detention. Another of the detainees was on a police top ten wanted list.
Some 17 people were injured, while a HírTV staff member was hit on the head by a bottle and a correspondent of the Index website was kicked, Népszabadság reports. Calm returned to the square by 8 p.m.
After his release, Vona told reporters “we shall defend the national camp from being smashed and Hungarians who swore to be Gárda members from the terror of those in power. We shall not allow a Socialist Party hurtling towards collapse and the Free Democrats an annihilated horde who betrayed the nation to intimidate the Gárda which has broken no law. We expect Viktor Orbán and Fidesz to make a statement on the current situation.”
During the night MEP Krisztina Morvai and extreme right Calvinist pastor Lóránt Hegedûs Jr. visited Vona and Gárda members at the jail on Buda’s Gyorskocsi utca.
Morvai told Magyar Hírlap that Saturday’s events evoke Third World dictatorships and are the latest episodes of violations of law that have been going on for seven years. The “brutal” police measures were illegal and disproportionate, she said, adding that Jobbik may file a complaint.
The extremists were the police and the false reporting, You fuckin cunts of Journalists!! On Politics.hu !!
Several thousand members of the Hungarian regime’s police force were called out on Saturday to illegally harass and violently disperse an entirely lawful demonstration held by a few hundred Hungarians in the centre of Budapest. Gábor Vona, the leader of the opposition Jobbik Movement, who joined the demonstrators in the Evening, was violently removed by the police after being pepper-sprayed. He was then shackled, restrained, removed and arrested; in a truly chilling move entirely unworthy of a European democracy.
The police behaved as the police should behave anywhere in the world. The extremist, neo-nazi primitive crowd could not be tolerated on the streets of Budapest. We should all stand against this racist phenomenon. Police: Well done!
The Hungarian police are Europe’s most highly politicized police force whose hierarchy and practices have remained virtually unchanged since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Increasingly numerous examples (since October 2006) bear witness to the fact that their central function within the precincts of the capital is the violent suppression of legitimate democratic opposition. Officers are now so certain of career advancement if they fulfil this overtly political role, that they no longer even pay lip-service to the prevention of the crime wave which has been sweeping the Hungarian countryside.
The Budapest Police, having successfully banned a previously organized demonstration, were confident that they would be able to intimidate the citizenry, by sheer force of enormous riot-gear clad numbers, from the exercising of their civil rights. They were wrong.
Hungarian Law categorically permits demonstrations within a 72 hour window of contemporary events, without any form of prior permission from the authorities. Lawyers from the independent Ombudsman’s office (whose observers were present at the demonstration) have stated that “they will be investigating” the police’s behaviour.
The subsequent protest, held by a few hundred members of the Hungarian Guard, their supporters and members of Jobbik; was in response to such a contemporary event. Namely, the ruling by the unelected judges of the Budapest Appeals Court on 2nd July, which called for the disbanding of the Hungarian Guard. That this nakedly political ruling contradicts the spirit of Article 62 of the Hungarian Constitution, Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and, Article 20 of the Universal declaration of Human Rights; all of which protect the right to Free Assembly; has been noted by several commentators. The judges’ decision also came in a week when independent surveys (such as that carried out by the Somogyi Hírlap) have shown that 80% of people trust the Guard to keep law and order more than their own national police force.
I actually don’t see a problem with police arresting members of an illegal paramilitary organization that advocates getting rid of Gypsies and Jews and restoring the old borders of Hungary.How stupid do you have to be to believe that shit? And you have to be as smart as a turd to think Hungary could even afford to a) ‘reclaim’ the land. I don’t think any Hungarian soldier thinks he/she gets paid enough to invade another EU country. b) pay social benefits to all in the ‘liberated’ areas of Hungary(including Gypsies.
Hello? Reality check.
These people probably had to start their own military club because the failed the test to even get in the Hungarian army. They probably can’t even figure out how to load a paintball gun, the usual outlet for rejected military type.
As for the police, it is odd to see them do their job. But good job.
Having peacefully congregated in Erzsébet Square, the supporters and members of the Hungarian Guard (whose regulations strictly prohibit the carrying of any form of weapon, offensive or otherwise) found themselves surrounded by thousands of armed police, bristling with batons and tear-gas canisters and dressed in full riot gear. The protesters were then instructed to disperse or face the consequences.
Though unbowed in their determination to continue in their completely lawful protest, the demonstrators nevertheless communicated their entirely peaceful intentions, to the armed men that were “kettling” them, in the globally recognized and universally accepted sign of non-violent resistance: by sitting down.
The police responded with a series of callous attacks against the seated demonstrators, in an all too common display of the facial spraying of tear gas at close range and the brutal beating of protestors regardless of age or infirmity. Though defenceless the demonstrators remained defiant and resisted all attempts to beat them into submission; and having failed to prevent the demonstrators from exercising their constitutional civil rights, the police were compelled to forcefully remove and arrest the demonstrators by snatching them individually and dragging them away.
Jobbik, The Movement for a Better Hungary, condemns the police’s unconscionable brutality against the peaceful exercising of civil rights by Hungarian citizens. Jobbik and its members are filled with pride at the fearlessness of both of our unlawfully arrested President, Gábor Vona, and all the brave members and supporters of the Hungarian Guard Movement.
Jobbik had received information in the early hours of Saturday, that the authorities would specifically target the President of Jobbik and any members of the party there present for intimidation and arrest. Despite this, Gábor Vona and other high ranking officials from Jobbik turned up at the demonstration to express their support for the Hungarian Guard and the incarceration of political prisoners.
We demand that Draskovics and his henchman do not to attempt to maltreat Gábor Vona, the president of Jobbik, a legitimate political party with the electoral backing of 15% of Hungary; or Robert Kiss, Captain of The Hungarian Guard, and the members of the Guard who are the last hope of the Hungarian countryside; and the other unlawfully detained peaceful demonstrators!
Jobbik’s MEPs and members of the National Legal Foundation have already arrived at the police station in question to make enquiries and to prevent a repetition of the atrocities perpetrated in 2006 when imprisoned demonstrators were brutally beaten.
Jobbik will hold an emergency meeting tonight to analyse the situation and to decide upon the necessary course of action. Our members and our half-million voters will be continuously informed of developments.
Jobbik will not be intimidated by such terror, and we will not tolerate groundless attacks on innocent Hungarian people, we will retaliate.
Pat, if you could let us know how you will retaliate before you do it, I know we would be interested to know. So if you are going to burn down a house or something, just post it here. We’ll keep it a secret.
But if you are nonviolent, I would suggest a flash mob pillow fight somewhere.
@Pat (whom I suppose also goes by the name of Sophie): do you ever get tired of writing things way out of reality? And, come to think of it: do you ever work? My guess is not, which can explain your bitterness due to high amounts of accumulated frustrations. Maybe the Gipsies/EU citizens took your job – now it figures.
As a foreigner, I was scared by this primitive
horde of neonazi skinheads. I was trying to go for
a beer in Godor club when I saw those far right
manifestants who shouldn’t be tolerated in any
Democracy. Thanks to the massive efforts of the
Police, the manifestation didn’t degenerate.
Hogwash. Seated demonstrators my rump. I was walking through the ter when this happened. Certainly people were not having a peaceful riot.
Pat don’t you think you are becoming both a very obsessive here and a little paranoid?
Well done, Pat! You did a sterling job of, inter alia, outlining the legal issues in the attack on the Gárda yesterday. (I am flattered that rumbi attributes your excellent text to me. But my apologies to you.)
Matyas, if you did see a ‘horde of neonazi skinheads’, rest assured that it was not the Gárda you saw: no Gárdista is a skinhead.
Really Sophie !?
But these event do seem to attract such a cuddly bunch of fella’s.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_HtSI6QxIfSg/Sk-NSXC9TeI/AAAAAAAABWI/NAS_dczl9DQ/s1600-h/hvim_csik.jpg
Yes, JD: Good looking, decorous young Hungarians, some of them with short hair. Envious, you sunken-chested little hunchback?
Settle down HP, your latent homosexuality is starting to show again. You might even have to go throw eggs at yourself.
Just curious but how many of these “Good looking, decorous young Hungarians” could you beat off if they were come at you from behind?
Just kidding, its a rhetorical questions, everyone already know the answer is ‘all of them’
Dear Politics.hu
What “Pat” has done here is basically gone to the Jobbik.com website and cut and pasted a large portion of their own news story of events. (I might add that their version, unlike much of what I have read, comes supported with photos and videos.) Which is far more persuasive than sock puppets coming here and saying they were there.
The thing is I can’t blame her. The events described here took place on July 4th, the Jobbikc.com article dates from July 5th, and your own piece dates from July 6th. It is obvious that both the events and their legality are a matter of dispute, but simply, you cannot get away with not putting out the other side of the story.
Perhaps there are arguments to be made for such one-sided journalism. However, when a democratic opposition leader has been arrested by the state, this is a very worrying move, and demands Informed and balanced reporting.
Further, what you fail to appreciate is the nationalist movement now has a 15% mandate. If you don’t provide their version of event s (ridicule it if you must and that is your ideological persuasion) you are engaged in passive censorship which is hardly the function for “The Intelligent Source for Intelligence on Hungarian Politics.”
Also, not doing so is insulting to the intelligence of your readership, and that’s not good for a News website that’s trying to be informative for an international readership.
“Envious, you sunken-chested little hunchback?”
My my, how the pathetic Sophie spits feathers and a touch of venom when she is shown to look a complete idiot.
Too bad that showing Sophie is a complete idiot is not too hard these days.
We seem to have an extra load of retarded anti-Hungarians here today. I wonder who these people might be: gays, jews, gypsies, MSZP/SZDSZ symphatisers and collaborators (thieves and traitors), brainwashed neo-liberals, and so on. They have no problems with the fascist storm troopers, but they are afraid of peaceful protesters. Why are you so terrified of anything with “Hungarian” in the name? Who are you lowlife dimwits?
I’m a Hungarian gay jew. I’m a Hungarian liberal gipsy. And I’m an all-time favourite of all unsuccessful, frustrated miserables to blame for their very own situation.
Have you ever though about going to work? To build this country and not to spend hours and days by blaming and corsing on others?
All kidding aside, as a pretty liberal American, and someone who used to post pretty often, I’d like to just add my 2 cents. First off, Sophie, while I don’t really have the time to post at all, I still read the posts often to brighten my otherwise drab day, and all kidding aside, whats your deal? Do you always have to insult everyone so crudely? moving on, while I personally don’t think much of the Garda, it’s not to say that I don’t sympathize with many Hungarians who support the Garda. Pretty much all the European mainstream media (economist, BBC, etc) constantly go off on Hungary’s treatment of the Gypsies, yet, when they get harassed in Ireland, Italy, wherever, those countries don’t get hit nearly as hard, so, yeah, I understand where they’re coming from with all this pent up rage and aggression. And lets be honest here, Hungary’s pretty much been shit on quite often in the last hundred years. Also, Pat’s right, they law is pretty clear about allowing the protests, and as for the pic’s that people post showing how rowdy the garda was, I also saw numerous pics of the garda just chilling and sitting down getting pepper sprayed, so it all depends on what you see. Okiedokie, just wanted to add my 2 cents. Oh, yeah, one more thing. Hungarian Police, they’re a f**king joke. Corrupt, Lazy, addlebrained fools. In New York, you’d never see a bunch of cops sleeping in the vans and cars, which you can often see on the corner of Wesselenyi and Sip.
The whole Hungarian political system is a washout.
MDF, SZDSZ, MSZP,MDF, are a total abomination.
Hungary has been sold down the river so many times by successive parliaments that it has now been shipwrecked on the wasteland of broken dreams and unfulfilled promises.
The contemptuous crowd of so-called politicians
in Hungary are the most useless, and corrupt bunch of toerags ever to assemble under one roof.
Below is another example of a useless moron slamming a bunch of old men in uniform because they chose to protest about gypsies and their useless ways.
“A democrat, however, cannot sit back because extremist ideas are still spreading like wildfire in the country,” MDF MP Karoly Herenyi said in the document.
Hurray Herenyi – another idiot of incomparable
insignificance. Money for old rope, anybody?
Seems like hungarian police has finally begun to do its work. That’s a good start, hovewer, a fish always stinks from its head. What Hungary should do in the first place is to dissolve radical jobbik party. Until then, all these gestures will remain only the minor cosmetical adjustments.
VDX,
You are validating my inherent mistrust of strangers.
Is this what 1956 and 1989 were for? To arrest law abiding people just because you disagree with what they say or feel? This is no democracy, this is a joke…….
This isn’t a battle between the Police and the Guard, not even the battle between gypsies and the magyar garda.
This is all a political move, fueled by politics and made by politics. The last 20 years of incompetent leadership and sinking away an entire country into oblivion; leaders, politicians, businessmen who would sell their own mother for an extra buck, that’s what causing all this.
Godot,
my apologies for deepening your complexes. Your’re right, it’s not within my power/possibility to overcome a devotion of one right hungarian patriot – most likely because it lies several light-years beyond any rational. At least you can spread out you’ve once again come across one hostile stranger who’s laid upon you.
I’d just like to add that I am from the Uk and was visiting Budapest on saturday 6th with my girlfriend. We saw loads of “Skinheads” and right wing fanatics at the protest and also around side roads and ehading towards it. My girlfriend is black and found it very intimidating. Good luck to the police I say.
Geordy, I saw you, you were drunk as a skunk, no wonder you were seeing things. Sober up, go home, and worry about your own skinheads.
Magyar Garda dissolved? This is the best news I’ve heard out of Hungary in almost two years!
I don’t expect it will solve things, but at least it will help destroy any ounce of political legitimacy the Garda pretended to have.
Once Orban is in power, he won’t need these idiotic bigots anymore, so I doubt he’ll overturn the decision. Then just four years of incompetent FIDESZ rule, and then, maybe, just maybe, Hungarians will look for something better than the useless parties they currently vote for.
Sane Person
Yours is the most intelligent comment I have read on this thread. Thank you.
All,
Some low-life addressed the ‘Sane Person’, not I.
The interesting part of this demo is that it was only a few hundred.
Jobbik claims close to 500.000 votes.
Magyar Garda claims to have “inaugurated” up to 3.000 members.
Hardly 10% of the members bothered to turn up.
Roll call did not work for Magyar Garda?
Or they are too afraid to meet the, nowadays etter riot-trained, Budapest Police?
Magyar Garda has only the guts to intimidate a few lone Romas in the villages?
Magyar Garda, the Pride of Hungary?
Throwing beer-bottles, was that the only thing the extra “private” weapon training program has enabled you guys to do in a group?
Good point Viking.
Erik, please, for ordinary decency’s sake, ask the git who is posting under my name to stop it. I did not write the ‘good point Viking’ rubbish.
Oh, silly, me! I appealed to Erik’s decency. I should have known that he is an apparatchik for this charmung organisation:
http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2009/07/12/israeli-thought-police-declare-all-out-war-on-the-web/
Clearly, this blog has become pointless.
Erik, sorry, my last comment was a bit passive – aggressive. I did not mean to insult you blog because if it were really that pointless I would just go away. Hugs & Kisses Sophie :*
Wake Up Hungary!
Vona Gabor’s real name is ZAZRIVECZ!!!
He is probably a KGB Put In provocator. That’s where the $$$ comes from!!
Vote for FIDESZ!
Mindenki mas hazaarulo!!!
Szebb Jovott!
By the way: did anyone who got arrested on Erzsebet ter had his fingerprints taken???
Sophie you shouldn’t be calling people KGB provcators when many know that the Communist are the ones currently in power in Hungary. The Socialist are being paid for with American and Communist money used to beat and intimidate Hungarian peaceful people.
I have always admired the Socialists’ ability to win support from the otherwise diametrically opposed Communists and Americans to advance their nefarious schemes. They must be pretty smart those guys.
@Sophie: “http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2009/07/12/israeli-thought-police-declare-all-out-war-on-the-web [Jewish Foreign ministry sponsored] Internet warfare squad” Now we know what homelandBetrayer™ lives on…
&,JDL posts a link to a picture of HVIM kids
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_HtSI6QxIfSg/Sk-NSXC9TeI/AAAAAAAABWI/NAS_dczl9DQ/s1600-h/hvim_csik.jpg to ‘prove’ Jobbik are skinheads… How typical.
@Pávaszem: That crappy link from the drag queen says: “A total of NIS 600,000 (roughly $150,000) will be earmarked to the establishment of an “Internet warfare” squad”. *A total of*!! You think that is a realistic fund for any sort of organised campaign? Take out admin costs and overheads and I doubt half will get through to paying anyone, anything.
You must be cheap to hire. Wonder why?
“Now we know what homelandBetrayer™ lives on…”
I do it for love.
N.b. I’ve noticed you avoid even trying to answer my points these days. Given up looking stupid in the face of reason, data and logic? Try the Anne Frank response if you think you know what you are talking about.
I hereby lay claim to posting above: Anonymous at July 14, 2009 3:27 PM
@Anonymous?
))) “I do it for love” I can just imagine the kind of ‘love’ you’re into… “I’ve noticed you avoid even trying to answer my points” Sophie answers your ‘points’ Tünde too, I as well, showing you up for the BS artist you really are which are obviously not the answers you want to hear so you keep chanting that ‘we don’t answer your nonexistent ‘points.’ How Pitiful. What would the right answer be, Whore? Or should we just join the Choir of Howling Whores such as yourself for our answers to be ‘acceptable?’ “Given up looking stupid in the face of reason, data and logic? Do you mean our dog fucking cunt grandmothers or the ‘worlds smartest human’ forgery (editing really) expert and loaded dice fan who is also a friend of Weird Earl? 
))))))) “I hereby lay claim to posting above: Anonymous at July 14, 2009 3:27 PM” Have I hit a nerve, Whore? 
))))))))) Don’t panic, your ‘professional background’ wasn’t news to anyone.