staging "an illegal demonstration" in Budapest late Thursday, March 15, when Hungary commemorated its failed 1848 Revolution against Habsburg rule.
Several barricades were seen burning in downtown Budapest and protestors armed with stones and bottles attacked reporters at the end of a day that was marred by fears of far right violence and anti-Semitic incidents, witnesses said. Hungarian News Agency MTI reported that its correspondent was injured after being attacked by protestors. Several others, including a police man, were also injured and officials said dozens of people were detained.
The rioters apparently attempted to reach nationalist leader Gyorgy Budahazy who was detained by police Thursday, March 15, on an arrest warrant for allegedly desecrating a Soviet memorial commemorating World War Two and involvement in violent demonstrations last year, including the siege of a public television station in September.
Riot police however managed to push back the crowd to Budapest’s Heroes Square and began clearing the main streets in the center of Hungary’s capital.
Thursday’s riots came after an anti-government rally of the main right-wing opposition party Fidesz drew an estimated 200,000 people in Budapest, one of several events to commemorate the 1848 Revolution.
PRIME MINISTER "TRAITOR"
Earlier in the day Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany’s presence outside the gothic parliament building in Budapest and at the National Museum was met by jeering and whistling and people shouting "traitor" and "Gyurcsany Resign."
Ahead of these and other rallies, representatives of the Hungarian Jewish community urged Jewish people earlier this week to stay away from anti-government demonstrations after some right wing protestors recently distributed lists of "Jewish politicians." Secret service officials also said radical groups planned armed attacks. Parts of the airspace above Budapest were closed because of the warning and camera’s were installed throughout the Hungarian capital.
Fidesz, which is a member of the main center-right group in the European Union – the
European Popular Party – has denied that it harbors xenophobic or anti-Semitic views. It asked participants at the Fidesz rally to carry only the official flag, and not the controversial Arpad flag, which was used by the pro-Nazi government of 1944-1945. About 600,000 Hungarian Jews died in the Holocaust during World War Two.
NAZI-FLAGS SEEN
Yet many participants still carried the Arpad flag and sang songs lamenting the demise of Greater Hungary after World War I, with some making Nazi salutes, witnesses said.
During a separate rally at March 15 Square, Budapest’s Liberal Mayor Gabor Demszky, who was pelted with eggs and rotten fruit, said in a speech that he regretted that many had taken flags of an era when hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews were massacred. But he stressed that extremists still form a small "but vocal" minority in 21st century Hungary.
The flags were also seen at a far-right rally with speeches from, among others, British historian David Irving, who was imprisoned until recently in Austria for Holocaust denial. Thursday’s protests have been fuelled by anger over Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany’s admittance that he lied to voters about the economy to win reelection last year.
TOUGHEST AUSTERITY PACKAGE
His Socialist-led government introduced the toughest austerity package yet, including tax hikes and health care reforms, to reduce Hungary’s budget deficit, relative the largest within the European Union, about 10 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.
There has also been anger that former Communists are participating in the government, 17-years after a multi party system was introduced here. Fidesz party leader Viktor Orban, who lost his second consecutive parliamentary election last April, has been demanding the ouster of the unpopular Socialist prime minister.
Orban said he wanted to use a referendum on some of the government’s programs likely to be held late this year as a vote on the Socialist-Liberal coalition. "(The referendum) is the last constitutional means with which the people can express their will. The referendum is binding: the government either does what the people want or it can be chased out" of power, Orban told a crowd gathered in downtown Budapest.
Gyurcsany, who recently won a vote of non-confidence in parliament despite the lying scandal, has played down public anger saying most protests were carried out by extremists and far-right people.
REFORMED CHRISTIANS DISAGREE
However on Thursday, March 15, Reformed Christians with close ties to Fidesz said it was to easy to blame far-right people for the problems.
An elder of the 1,000-strong ‘A Hazateres Temploma’, or ‘The Homecoming Church’, told BosNewsLife that the prime minister had used police to scare people ."There was police violence last year October 23, during the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution against Soviet domination," said the 39-year old elder, Dr. Gyongyi Hegedus, whose father is bishop.
"About 50 Christians were forced to remain in the church by police blocking the entrance, while others attempting to reach our congregation [for the commemoration service] were prevented from doing so," she added. On Thursday, March 15, her church invited several international observers to monitor events in Budapest during the March 15 National Holiday.
In what commentators described as "an unusually short national day speech" Gyurcsany urged anti-government protestors and the opposition however to have "a dialogue as compatriots" instead of street battles. But as the day came to a close, there were no signs of reconciliation as hopes of a peaceful March 15 commemoration went up in smoke.
