Saturday’s "human chain" of about 10,000 people was organized by the ‘national association of families with several children,’ and other conservative groups, who in many cases have close ties with churches and Christian organizations.
Thousands also demonstrated in Budapest’s Heroes Square, organizers said. Hungary’s Socialist-led government, which includes former Communists, says the measures are aimed at reducing Hungary’s budget deficit, the largest within the European Union. However church leaders claim the measures are at least in some cases directed against religious institutions.
Saturday’s protests against the government austerity measures came ahead of this month’s first anniversary of a leaked tape recording in which current Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany admits he lied about Hungary’s economy to win re-election. That admission led to a period of violent protests, in which hundreds of people were injured.
Demonstrators gathered early Saturday, September 8, at Budapest’s Fiumei Street Cemetery, to march through the city center to the gothic Parliament building, where they demanded that the government withdraw "measures that would compromise the future of families and children".
"DEPRIVING CHILDREN"
"The government deprives children of future opportunities, generates chaos and fear to meet its own selfish goals, therefore it must resign," Ildiko Pelcz Gall, deputy chairman of the main opposition Fidesz party, told reporters in front of Parliament in Kossuth Square. "The Socialist-Liberal government is in fact anti-social. It sells our opportunities while we are forced to live on benefits," Pelcz Gall added.
It came amid allegations from churches that they face a new kind of persecution in post-Communist Hungary, with authorities allegedly creating the impression among Hungarian people that the church "is the enemy." Catholic and Protestant church leaders have said they were forced to fire staff and close schools because of the government’s policies.
The Hungarian Reformed Church, the country’s main Protestant denomination, said in a published statement it was already forced to close two art schools and lay off 50-100 employees "due to financial hardships as a result of declining state support." The church reportedly runs 109 educational institutions with 30,400 students, and employs 2,500 teachers.
Hungary’s largest denomination, the Catholic Church, has also reported financial difficulties. The Catholic Institute for Pedagogical Organization and Further Education said the church would unlikely find alternative resources this year to make up for an expected 10 percent shortfall in funding from the state to Catholic-run schools.
MERGING SCHOOLS
So far the Catholics have not been forced to close schools, but merged some institutions, Hungarian media reported. The Catholic Church currently operates 191 educational institutions serving 52,000 students, about 4 percent of the Hungarian educational system, according to estimates.
Hungary’s Lutheran Church has not yet suffered under the recent austerity measures at a time when it employs about 1,000 teachers, and educate 11,000 students, officials said.
Tensions over austerity meassures have emboldened far right groups, including the paramilitary group ‘Magyar Garda’, ‘or Hungarian Guard’, with support from some Protestant and Catholic church leaders. However Bishop Gusztav Bolcskei, president of the Reformed Church’s synod, cautioned in published remarks that, "It is most disturbing that in the last days there has been an institutional misdirection from the real problems, in particular the last year’s affairs."
He stressed the church is willing to cooperate with the government to solve the "real problems" of society, "such as shortcomings in the healthcare and education systems."
The developments in Hungary, a mainly Catholic nation, are closely watched by Western diplomats, who want a return to stability in the heart of Europe, and in this relative new European Union member state.
