Elég volt!
Speaker in front of the Hungarian Parliament at a far-right rally on 5 April 2009. Who knows who he is? (Sorry, I have no TV, so I'm hopeless at matching up faces to the names I know from the news!)
On 5 April, tens of thousands of protesters gathered at Heroes Square to demonstrate for early elections and against the nomination of Economy Minister Gordon Bajnai as the man to replace Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany. The banned Magyar Garda (Hungarian Guard, since reformed as Hungarian Guard Movement) then broke through police lines and marched down Andrassy Boulevard to Parliament in their uniforms. They were joined and met by about 1,500 other far right supporters on Kossuth Square.
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The sign in front of the speaker says:
ENOUGH!!!
of the bolshevik, thieving, looting government*!
NEW ELECTIONS!
* Actually, the Hungarian word for government is kormány; this sign says kurmány. A different word or an, uhm, subtle contraction of kormány and kurva (whore)?
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The rally on Kossuth ter was interesting to me because for the first time I saw some major strife between protesters. When some protesters confronted the police lines, yelling at them and starting to throw some things, Hungarian Guardsmen and some of the organisers seemed to berate and debate them, but in turn were met with anger. Heated words flew to and fro - I got just two pics, but I'll put them up next. Going on the little Hungarian I know, the ones were telling the others to focus on the main goal and beware of provocations, but the others responded by calling them cowards and saying everyone should fight the police.
At some point, the Magyar Garda suddenly marched off collectively, which in turn led to more heated shoutfests with others calling them traitors. Imagine - the Guard being the moderates in a confrontation! Politics.hu reported the day after that what happened was that "Radical activist György Budaházy [who gained fame/notoriety in the 2006 riots] demanded to know why the Magyar Gárda present were not attacking the police, prompting them to leave the square."
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Bonus oddity: the sign on the photo refers to the website harcter.hu, which according to whois.com is registered by László Gonda, described as one of the main leaders of the 2006 protests. But if I try to open the site, I get a Google warning that 21 pages on the site result in "malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent".
Elég volt!
Speaker in front of the Hungarian Parliament at a far-right rally on 5 April 2009. Who knows who he is? (Sorry, I have no TV, so I'm hopeless at matching up faces to the names I know from the news!)
On 5 April, tens of thousands of protesters gathered at Heroes Square to demonstrate for early elections and against the nomination of Economy Minister Gordon Bajnai as the man to replace Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany. The banned Magyar Garda (Hungarian Guard, since reformed as Hungarian Guard Movement) then broke through police lines and marched down Andrassy Boulevard to Parliament in their uniforms. They were joined and met by about 1,500 other far right supporters on Kossuth Square.
-----------------------------------------------
The sign in front of the speaker says:
ENOUGH!!!
of the bolshevik, thieving, looting government*!
NEW ELECTIONS!
* Actually, the Hungarian word for government is kormány; this sign says kurmány. A different word or an, uhm, subtle contraction of kormány and kurva (whore)?
-----------------------------------------------
The rally on Kossuth ter was interesting to me because for the first time I saw some major strife between protesters. When some protesters confronted the police lines, yelling at them and starting to throw some things, Hungarian Guardsmen and some of the organisers seemed to berate and debate them, but in turn were met with anger. Heated words flew to and fro - I got just two pics, but I'll put them up next. Going on the little Hungarian I know, the ones were telling the others to focus on the main goal and beware of provocations, but the others responded by calling them cowards and saying everyone should fight the police.
At some point, the Magyar Garda suddenly marched off collectively, which in turn led to more heated shoutfests with others calling them traitors. Imagine - the Guard being the moderates in a confrontation! Politics.hu reported the day after that what happened was that "Radical activist György Budaházy [who gained fame/notoriety in the 2006 riots] demanded to know why the Magyar Gárda present were not attacking the police, prompting them to leave the square."
-----------------------------------------------
Bonus oddity: the sign on the photo refers to the website harcter.hu, which according to whois.com is registered by László Gonda, described as one of the main leaders of the 2006 protests. But if I try to open the site, I get a Google warning that 21 pages on the site result in "malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent".