Supporters of historian Krisztián Ungváry have come to his aid and raised Ft 2 million (€7,200) after a court ruled that he had libeled Judge László Kiss by writing that he was informer during the communist period, index.hu reports. The court also fined him and weekly Élet és Irodalom Ft 3 million plus interest. Ungváry, who held a small demonstration in front of Hungary’s Supreme Court on Monday, said that by ruling as they did, the court was falsifying history. Ungváry, who is known for his objectivity and riling both left and right over their selective readings of the past (and has been one of the bigger proponents of shedding light on Hungary’s communist era informer network) said that he would take his fight to the European Court, where he fully expects to win.
Support and money pours in for historian charged with libeling judge
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I think Ungváry is a lion amongst men.
You can see him in action here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbEiFht5Ams
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBYcPVrOyqc
http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=0300104685
I would say he is a man among lions. He opens his mouth and they (commies) swallow him.
It would be far better if he wrote a book indicting all the rogue reds(changing names but still making it obvious who they are) and he could write a disclaimer saying the usual bullshit about “any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidence.” blah blah, etc.. and so on.
Ungváry and his friends should find a place in Heaven eventually. Not before they “out” all the red commie bastards skulking in the wings.
How can one make a donation to his cause?
Interesting,is this great ‘hero’ also going to reveal that most of those commies are also jews,like himself? I guess not….
Ricsi as always you are a liar. Sure some of the top bad people were former Jews but statistically speaking non-Jewish Party Members outnumbered Jewish by hundreds to one.
I guess that makes Christians hundreds of times worse, right?
FU you racist f-ck.
In his book “The Siege of Budapest” he writes that the victory of the Soviets meant the liberation and the saved lives of many Hungarian Jews.
There is one passage where he writes about a group of children who are being lined by the Arrow Cross in front of a machine gun, but are saved at the last minute as the Arrow Cross runs from the approaching Soviet army. I can only expect that those children felt a great deal of admiration for the Soviet soldiers.
It is a great sorrow that the liberation of Jews in Hungary was followed by the enslavement of Hungary as a Soviet satellite.
I applaud Krisztián Ungváry’s work to uncover the workings of the secret police – “Elhallgatott múlt. A pártállam és a belügy. A politikai rendőrség működése Magyarországon 1956-1990 (Silenced past. The party-state and the interior. Operation of the political police in Hungary 1956-90). Budapest: Corvina, 2008.”
Uncovering those who were involved is essential to Hungary’s progress. Let’s remember those children now – if some of them later became part of the apparatus of the Soviet state and were informers, I believe they deserve our understanding. They were victims of a terrible time.
Twenty years later Hungary needs to move toward truth and reconciliation. Revenge will do nothing to move her forward.
Some of the less thoughtful will now accuse me of being a communist or worse. Keep in mind that my family fled from the Soviets and others were jailed and tortured. I have no love of communism.
Ok this is going to be spread over a couple of posts because there will be more than two links to send.
Following the index.hu piece linked to above, it emerges that collections are being organized through a facebook group and website.
Facebook Group
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=125014380862403
Website
http://sites.google.com/site/ungvaryper/
More information can be found on the scale of donations here at index.hu:
http://index.hu/belfold/2010/07/12/ketmillionyi_adomany_gyult_ossze_ungvary_buntetesere/
And here at hvg:
http://hvg.hu/velemeny/20100621_ungvary_kiss_biszku
You may make a donation, as the webpage / Facebook group make clear:
Through PayPal
Beneficiary: vaczii@freemail.hu
At a Hungarian Bank
Name: Ungváry Krisztián
Bank: OTP Bank
Account Number: 11773023-00000811
Or by international transfer
SWIFTBIC: OTPVHUHB
IBAN: HU101177302 3000008110 0000000
@Bobs…: The results so far have been great and really encouraging against the backdrop of the current parliamentary and constitutional shenanigans. I was pretty angry in June and was surprised it wasn’t picked up earlier http://www.politics.hu/20100611/controversy-over-film-on-communistera-official#c3
Anyone who cares about Hungray and can afford a couple of thousand, should donate.
It also shows, yet again how central É&I continues to be in being the only truly investigative political paper. And how fitting for Hungary that it is also the high-brow weekly for the literati.
@Ricsi and all the useless shite: Do you really not get it? This guy is colour blind. He doesn’t care if you are pretending to be orange, red or green. If the data fits, you were a twat and now all you are is a compromised and scared twat. Who gives a fuck who or what Ungáry is? How is that relevant to anything? Obviously you have the advantage of understanding fuck all and not being able to read Hungarian, if you did and could all this would matter to you.
There aren’t that many people willing and able to stick their necks out like this. There are very few people in the elite that aren’t already massively compromised. Do the decent thing and send a week of your beer money. Or Law can send the money he normally spends on glue.
“Anyone who cares about Hungray and can afford a couple of thousand, should donate.”
“Hungray” will be ignored this time.
People who care should do better than donate money to pay for the court’s insanity. Get on the phone, call your reps and have them change the stupid law. Maybe democracy works in some cases, give it a try.
@Ricsi,
Was it you who suffered a very effective and deserving smake-down on this issue.
http://esbalogh.typepad.com/hungarianspectrum/jews/
According to that post a small fraction of the leadership was Jewish.
And according to Krisztián Ungváry’s book on the secret police of the top 250 positions below the political leadership in the organization only about three had the equivalent of college degrees, about 50 had high school degrees, and almost all of them came from working class and pheasant families from the countryside. So, much for being a cadre of urban Jewish intellectuals.
Condemnation of the communism of Hungary should be color blind to religion. Because the participants came from both major religious backgrounds.
Pete H.
“pheasant families”?
http://www.hutmansbeagles.com/images/pheasant.jpg
@Nonsense,
>
Besides catching a typo, got a point?
I could point out to you, the great Hungaryophile, that Hungary does not have Reps, it has MP’s. Are you the one who claims you are Hungarian?
However Hungary does have both pheasants and peasants. And both toil on small agricultural plots in the countryside.
“Interesting,is this great ‘hero’ also going to reveal that most of those commies are also jews,like himself? I guess not….”
Ricsi at July 14, 2010 6:40 PM
***
Here is a guy who stands up against old and new commies but all you can see is a Jew.
Some Jews were commies and according to you this makes him a commie too.
You think he should reveal himself as a Jew, confess to the crime of being Jewish.
Ooooh, and of course you are not an anti-Semite.
If that is true you must be incredibly stupid.
***
What a sorry excuse for a human being you really are.
@Ricsi,
Another thing – he devotes a full chapter to the Catholic church leadership’s involvement with the secret police. Yet you selectively bark “Jew”.
What’s clear from his research is that the only real common denominator among the secret police was that almost all of them came from poor backgrounds and all were therefore likely to gain materially from being loyal to the communist party.
Pete H.
“I could point out to you, the great Hungaryophile”
“Hungaryophile” is not a word, not even a typo.
Try Hungarophile next time. It’s still not really a word, but I’ll let it slide.
“Hungary does not have Reps, it has MP’s”
I call them representatives, after all it would be their job to represent their constituency. Who knows, maybe one day some of them will do just that.
“Hungary does have both pheasants and peasants. And both toil on small agricultural plots in the countryside.”
I’m aware of that. I used to shoot pheasants when they were trespassing on my property.
Peasants are good people. Well, most of them.
“Hungary does have both pheasants and peasants. And both toil on small agricultural plots in the countryside.”
Common Sense at July 15, 2010 6:21 AM
Naturally it is understandable that the two are confused. Both are killed routinely in Hungary by the Roma. The only difference is that killing pheasants results in a higher probability of capture and imprisonment. Oh and the international press are much more likely to give a shit.
Anonymous. Spoken like a country squire and a gentleman. I live in the countryside and I know what you say is true.
If both our posts are not deleted it will be a wonder.
The truth hurts and liberal-minded fuckers that invest this site as well as the management are beginning to irk me….!!
In my fit of rage – a typo: “infest” not “invest”.
Shark-infested waters…
As one Lord Chief Justice of England once said. “The greater the truth the greater the libel”
Tenyek,
You are a contemptible loser.
You fail to mention the cases where Roma have been framed by police.
We Americans have shown our superiority in electitng a great leader in our current President. A man who doesn’t pander to nationalist sentiments or spends his time checking his popularity ratings.
Instead your people elects a certified loser like Victor Orban.
American in denial
“We Americans have shown our superiority in electitng a great leader in our current President.”
You haven’t elected a “great leader” in centuries. Are you black or just seriously misinformed?
What do you think of Black Panthers in black uniforms, with nightsticks hanging out in front of voting stations, trying to scare away white folks?
Commonsense,
Where Planet do you reside on?
No one in Chicago or New York worries about Black Panthers obstructing voting.
You need to stop taking those hallucinogens …
And yes, the US produced a large number of great leaders including the founding fathers, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Kennedy, and now Obama …
You can now go back to practicing your goose stepping and saluting a picture of the Führer …
Ungarn uber alles …
“the US produced a large number of great leaders including the founding fathers, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Kennedy, and now Obama …”
Is this what they teach you in elementary school?
These are the most overrated presidents of history. Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy? It’s a miracle America survived them. Obama is a bad joke. Ask around if you ever make it to the US.
CS: “Are you black or just seriously misinformed? ”
CommonSense and Ricsi need to get married, they’re
so much in love!
@Anonymous: Obama is far from being a great leader, so far he has reneged on too many promises and is clearly in the same hands as the previous administration. Here, don’t know if you follow Cenk Uygur on The Young Turks, but you should, if you are a real democrat: “Obama Vs. Reagan: Who’s More Conservative?” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILg1-H6oNuM
Obama is excellent. He extended health care coverage in a country that still doesn’t have universal health care. He produced a stimulus that pulled the US economy of recession. His judicial appointments are solid. He understand the importance of global warming and a smarter energy policy.
The American system is different from the European parliamentary system. A super majority of 60 votes is required.
That means a determined minority can block most legislation.
To talk about ‘broken promises’ is a bit naive when the Democrats don’t have a super majority in the Senate.
I agree with Anonymous re: Obama. Obama has been
stymied by the Filibuster rule which means that a
minority who basically “lost” the last election gets
to “rule” with only 40% “majority”.
The exception to that was HealthCare which only
passed using the “end-around” of Reconciliation.
Not the way one wants to get things done, but when
the other “team” is abusing filibusters as “standard
procedure”…
I think Obama is trying his best to Get It Done and
by appealing to the farthest Left only he would get
nothing done… I think he’s trying pretty hard and
clearly getting no credit for it. Oh well.
@ Vandorlo
Hope you are not in too bad a mood – I haven’t asked you any questions for a long time but can’t figure this out.
I was really interested in the Ungvary article and wanted to know why he was convicted and I was trying to find the reasons for judgment. No luck
All I could find was an Eva Balogh article dated October 21, 2009:
“To everybody’s great surprise he won his latest case. And there is no possibility of appeal. He won against, you won’t believe it, one of the members of the Constitutional Court who demanded five-million forints non-monetary compensation (nem vagyoni kártérítés). (I must confess my total ignorance. I have been reading about all these non-monetary compensations for years and for the life of me I can’t figure out what they can possibly be!) Here is a learned legal expert who put together a charge consisting of twenty-three points against the defendant and yet no dice. Mind you, the whole case dragged on for two years and in the lower court Kiss won, but the Budapest Appellate Court (Fővárosi Ítélőtábla) decided that, twenty-three points or not, Kiss was an informer just as Ungváry claimed.”
This website’s article just said “a court ruled” but the demonstration was outside the “Supreme Court” so it may have been the Supreme Court’s ruling
However, why was the case back in any Court if it there was no possibility to appeal?
There is a Canadian legal website where legal decisions can be read. Is there a Hungarian one?
Commonsense,
Your idea of great leader is someone who invades another country …
@Olga: I’M not at all in bad mood, and am deeply offended at the suggestion – but I’ll let it slide. Anyway, it’s true Unváry won all the point on detail, only to lose a separate case brought for ‘libel’ (rágalmazás). So in Hungary, you can be factually correct, but if the facts impinge on a person’s image then that is defamation?!! Yes, that is basically how Hungary and their judges think.
I know it takes you a while to wade through Hungarian sometimes, but try this article, it has most of the relevant detail: http://www.origo.hu/itthon/20100602-szemelyisegi-jogi-pert-vesztett-a-kiss-laszlo-alkotmanybiro-multjarol-iro.html
p.s. The higher court actually ruled that they did not support the unequivocal factual basis of the opinion given in the piece (in Élet és Irodalom). How this managed to progress further, I think was simply due to this being a separate civil case for damages, unconnected with the court case previously lost – though I would welcome a correction on that, should anyone know.
@ Vandorlo
Thanks so much – regardless of how long that will take me , I will read it because I want to understand it once and for all.
In the meantime, if I said you were in a bad mood I shall apologize profusely
There is only one person on this whole website whose wrath I do not want to incur (not giving reasons)
I would be very disappointed if some of the people I respect attacked me but with you I am in downright fear. (The weirdos bother me as much as those Hungarian village dogs that bark when i walk by and they are behind locked gates. )
Grovel, grovel…will read the article later tonight…