This 22 February 2018 video shows the Hungarian men’s short track speed skating relay team, led by their coach Ms Zhang Jing, win the Olympic Winter Games final, beating China and Canada.
National coach of Hungarian short track leaves after insults and racism towards China
The national coach of the Hungarian short track team Zhang Jing resigned after one of her pupils had made derogatory and racist remarks about China, precisely the country where the national coach is from.
“I cannot tolerate a Hungarian skater, let alone an Olympic champion, making such racist comments about China,” Zhang said on social media. The Hungarian team still has two members who have Chinese roots, the brothers Shaoang Liu and Shaolin Liu. Their father is from China.
Zhang has been the national coach of the Hungarians since 2012 and achieved great success during her tenure. For example, under her leadership, Shaolin Liu once became world champion and four times European champion and he and his brother won silver and bronze at international championships. The Olympic gold with the relay team in Pyeongchang was the crowning glory.
Its mayor, Laszlo Toroczkai, says that while he would welcome people from Western Europe to live in the area, “we wouldn’t like to attract Muslims to the village”. Lesley Ashmall reports.
Commentator describes competition as ‘homosexual flotilla’ and says country’s mental health would be better if it did not participate
Hungary has pulled out of the Eurovision song contest amid speculation the competition is “too gay” for the country’s far-right government.
Although no official reason has been given for the withdrawal, a source inside Hungary’s public broadcaster reportedly said they assumed hostility to the contest’s LGBT+ links were behind the decision.
One pro-government commentator described Eurovision as a “homosexual flotilla” and said the country’s mental health would be better if it did not join the competition.
A source inside MTVA, the Hungarian public broadcaster which typically hosts its own song contest where the winner goes on to represent the country at Eurovision, told The Guardian: “I was not surprised. It comes from the organisational culture of MTVA.”
Positive coverage of LGBT+ rights in the media was discouraged, they told the paper.
It comes after Hungarian website index.hu quoted public media sources speculating the country had withdrawn because Eurovision was considered “too gay”. …
Hungary’s decision not to participate in Eurovision was then confirmed last week when the list of competing countries was published.
“I welcome the decision, including from a mental health perspective, that Hungary will not take part in the homosexual flotilla that this international song competition has been reduced to,” said Andras Bencsik, the editor of a pro-government magazine, said.
“Many young people thought that this is something for people under 18, but at this event the destruction of public taste takes place with screaming transvestites and bearded women.”
🇭🇺Thousands in Hungary protest PM Viktor Orbán‘s ‘slave law’ | Al Jazeera English
Thousands of people protested in the capital city of Hungary, Budapest, against a controversial new labour law and the rule of right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. The protest, called “Merry Xmas Mr Prime Minister”, was the fourth and biggest demonstration in a week by leftist opposition parties, student groups, trade unions and ordinary people against the nationalist government.
Braving freezing temperatures, several thousand workers have taken to the streets of Budapest on a daily basis since last Wednesday to protest against the tightening up of labour law by the Hungarian government. One week ago, 10,000 people protested against the new “Slave Law.” Police used tear gas and water cannon to brutally repel the demonstrators.
On Wednesday, parliament passed the new bill proposed by the right-wing Fidesz party led by Prime Minister Victor Orbán. On Friday and Saturday, riots took place with more than 50 participants arrested and many wounded in clashes with police. According to media reports, 14 police officers were injured. The media described the protests as “the most violent protests in more than ten years.” The initial protests were limited to the capital city, but protests also took place on Friday in Pecs in southern Hungary.
The law reform is designed to increase the annual overtime employers are allowed to demand from their workers from 250 to 400 hours. At the same time, companies no longer have to compensate or pay overtime within one year, but only within three years.
The protests not only included calls for the repeal of the new labour code, but also for the resignation of Premier Orbán and for basic political changes. In the 10 years Orbán has been in power, he has led Hungary towards dictatorship and strengthened the most right-wing elements in the country.
The protests are also directed against another law passed Wednesday, which subordinates the judiciary to even more control by the government. The law places new administrative courts directly under the justice minister, Laszlo Trocsanyi, a close ally of Orbán.
The tightening of the Labour Code serves the interests of international corporations operating in the country, especially the auto industry, which accounts for about one third of all Hungarian exports. Nearly all international carmakers, such as Audi, BMW and Opel, produce in Hungary. They are attracted in particular by wages that are around one third of what the auto companies pay in countries like Germany. Hungary is considered a “location with low labour costs, well-trained workers and weak unions”, the Wiener Zeitung notes.
As in other eastern European countries, massive emigration and the decline of the education system is beginning to affect the labour market. That is why companies are having increasing difficulty finding skilled workers. Orbán’s law means that such skilled workers can in future be compelled to work much longer hours.
Union representatives rightly refer to the law as a backdoor to the introduction of a six-day working week. Foreign Trade Minister Péter Szijjártó recently stated that investors have welcomed the proposals of the Hungarian government, because they will increase competitiveness.
In all of the protests, many participants wore yellow vests. They were expressing their solidarity with the protests in France, where the opposition to President Emmanuel Macron has assumed the dimensions of a mass movement of the working class against the capitalist system. The latest protests in Hungary have been supported by students and school pupils, as is the case in France.
Although the unions have increasingly adapted to the government line in recent years, they felt obliged to respond to workers’ pressure for the protests. The MASZSZ trade union group even threatened a general strike if the government did not withdraw the law. Other unions, such as the teachers’ union, also joined the protests. The Internet portal nepszava.hu published a survey by the polling institute Pulzus according to which 81 percent of respondents agreed with the protests.
The majority of protesters are expressing genuine anger at the right-wing government, but far-right forces are trying to exploit the protests for their own ends. The neo-fascist Jobbik party has called for rejection of the new labour law, and far-right-wing forces are using social media to mobilise against it. The Jobbik leadership called upon its regional organisations to travel to Budapest on Friday to participate in the protests. …
The Orbán government is responding to the protests with an extremely aggressive, right-wing campaign. As was the case when the government took a fierce stance against refugees, Orbán raises the cudgel of anti-Semitism. According to Balazs Hidveghi, the communications director of the governing party, the Jewish US billionaire George Soros “organised the violence in Budapest.” Soros and his network were only interested in riots, and provocation and protests had been deliberately planned, as was the violence against policemen, Hidveghi explained, according to the Hungarian news agency MTI.
Recently, Hungary’s head of government initiated the bundling of media outlets favourable to the government in a new consortium. In early December, he signed a decree stating that this measure was of “strategic importance” and in the public interest. The measure permits Orbán to increase his influence over the press in Hungary and neutralise any media opposition. This explains why many of the Hungarian media outlets refuse to report on the protest or do so only to portray the protesters as “rabble.”
Protests against the right-wing government of Premier Victor Orbán have continued this week. Thousands had taken to the streets in Budapest and other big cities last week. The demonstrations were triggered by a new law that increases the number of overtime hours that employers can demand from their workers from 250 to 400 per year: here.
Every year, the 28-country [European Union] bloc pays out $65 billion in farm subsidies intended to support farmers around the continent and keep rural communities alive. But across Hungary and much of Central and Eastern Europe, the bulk goes to a connected and powerful few. [New York Times]
Ukraine’s Hungarians wait impatiently for better times to come
The Carpathian mountain chain lies along Ukraine’s border with Hungary.The vibrant and well-established Hungarian community inside Ukraine has escaped, like the rest of western Ukraine, the ravages that have swept Donbass and the east. This is agricultural country, and despite being poorer than the rest of the country, life is gentler and prices are much much lower. The region gets financial aid from Budapest, and many towns and villages are twinned with Hungarian communities.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has expelled a consul of the Hungarian government for what it calls the illegal distribution of Hungarian passports to Ukrainian citizens.
In hidden camera footage posted to YouTube in September, Hungarian consular staff in the town of Berehove are shown distributing Hungarian citizenship documents and leading oaths of loyalty to the Hungarian state.
Under Ukrainian law, citizens are not permitted to hold dual citizenship. However, in practice, as a multi-ethnic country with a large number of Ukrainians living and working abroad, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens hold passports from Russia, Belarus, Poland, Romania and elsewhere.
In retaliation for Ukraine’s expulsion of its government representative, Hungary announced that it would be kicking out a Ukrainian diplomat currently stationed in Budapest. It also threatened to block Ukraine’s bid for NATO and EU membership.
The escalating tit-for-tat expulsions are a result of deteriorating relations between the two right-wing, nationalist governments over the treatment of ethnic minorities, laws on language rights and geopolitics.
Over 200,000 Hungarians live in Ukraine, with the majority residing in the Zakarpattia province. Prior to World War II this region was not considered part of then-Soviet Ukraine.
Discrimination against the Hungarian language has been presented by the government of Viktor Orban as the main reason for its increasingly negative attitude towards Kiev. In September of 2017, the Ukrainian government of Petro Poroshenko introduced a new, undemocratic language law that limited the ability of ethnic minorities to be instructed in their native language. It made Ukrainian the required language of instruction for all students in secondary school.
While the bill was clearly intended to target the use of Russian language in schools and “Ukrainianize” the country’s Russian population, it also angered other ethnic minorities. In response to the changes in the language bill, EU members Hungary, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria all filed complaints with the Council of Europe and the OSCE. Hungary said that it will veto any vote in support of Ukrainian membership in the EU and NATO, unless the language bill is changed.
The enforced use of Ukrainian has been utilized by the Poroshenko regime and the country’s nationalist thugs to attack ethnic minorities and whip up ethnic hatred of all things “anti-Ukrainian”. This is part of the now over four-year-long war against the Russian-majority Donbass region of the country, which attempted to break away from Kiev in the wake of the anti-Russian coup that brought Poroshenko to power.
In September, the western city of Lviv banned all Russian-language books, movies and other cultural artefacts, despite the fact that a substantial minority of the population uses the Russian language in daily life.
Such actions have further emboldened right-wing thugs to attack those speaking languages other than Ukrainian in the public sphere. In September, a McDonald’s worker in Kiev was accosted by a right-wing “activist” for speaking Russian while serving customers. …
In addition to already announced plans to build a naval base on the Azov Sea, Ukraine’s Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) Oleksandr Turchynov declared last week that the country intends “to conduct serious drills in the waters of the Azov Sea.” For its part, Washington has supplied the Ukrainian navy with patrol boats.
Last month Ukraine conducted a series of provocative military exercises throughout the country with the support and involvement of the United States, which has military “advisers” all over the territory. Ukraine’s army sent troops towards the Hungarian border during the exercises, in an attempt to intimidate Budapest. Kiev denied that the exercises targeted Hungary, absurdly claiming that the show of force was meant to prevent Russia from invading Ukraine from the west.
While Trump is constantly lambasted by the Democratic Party for being insufficiently aggressive towards Russia, he has in fact gone further than former President Barack Obama in support for Kiev, including by sending the country Javelin anti-tank missiles.
In September, the US House of Representatives approved the 2019 draft military budget, which increases war funding for Ukraine to $250 million.
Mayflies only have a matter of hours to mate and lay their eggs before becoming food for hungry chicks. Experience all details in beautiful slow motion.
This 14 December Dutch regional TV video is about Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch xenophobic and Islamophobic PVV party, presenting the new local party leader and number one candidate for the Rotterdam municipal elections on 18 March 2018. Opponents of Wilders were present as well.
That new local leader is ex-soldier, now unemployed, Géza Hegedüs, of Hungarian ancestry.
Initially, Geert Wilders said that the PVV was ‘only’ against Islam, supposedly not anti-Semitic or otherwise racist. So, he then said he did not want collaboration with neofascist parties like Vlaams Belang in Belgium or National Front in France.
Now, Wilders and his new local pointman Hegedüs are planning a xenophobic demonstration in Rotterdam on 20 January 2018. The Nederlandse Volksunie on its Facebook page calls on its supporters to join that demonstration.
Dutch investigators of the extreme right Kafka write about him today (translated):
Hegedüs explains during the conversation that he got to know the alt-right through Red Ice. According to him there are all sorts of differences within alt-right, but he finds that refreshing. Fortunately, according to Hegedüs, there is also a binding factor within alt-right. According to him, that is “the survival of the white race, so to speak.” David Duke, the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan “also has interesting things to tell” he says. Hegedüs complains about the allegedly dominant influence of the concept of diversity in society. “Of course you are banned from doubting the ethnic diversity ideal in the first place” according to the intended PVV party local leader. “Where it goes wrong” he grumbles, “is the principle of equality.” Therefore he rejects feminism “totally” and he no longer conducts discussions with people who deny “racial biological aspects”. …
The Jobbik party soon comes up for discussion in the conservation and the two participants let themselves be known as outspoken anti-Semites and Roma haters. “The gypsy problem was discussed by Jobbik. That was very strong”, Hegedüs says with satisfaction. But he also has concerns about the development of this party. “Judgments about Jews have disappeared altogether” and “statements about gypsies are increasingly going to the background”, Hegedüs notes. He suspects, however, that this is a strategy to attract moderate voters. “If that is true” says Hegedüs, then it is “a very good strategic move.” Szaloki confirms the analysis of Hegedüs. “The skinheads in bomber jackets have disappeared from the streets in Hungary. Now it’s people in suits.”…
Over the weekend, Budapest saw hundreds of neo-Nazis from across Europe marching in the streets marking a WWII anniversary. It is a dangerous trend that is growing across the continent. pic.twitter.com/CKiwiW9oBU
(21 Sep 2016) Hungarian prison inmates have ramped up their production of razor wire, working around the clock as Hungary prepares to build a second fence on the border with Serbia to keep out refugees and other migrants.
Razor wire manufacture at the prison in Marianosztra, northern Hungary, has increased from two shifts earlier this year, to three.
Besides its domestic use, Hungary has also sold or donated fence elements, including wire and steel posts, to other countries in the region, including Slovenia and Macedonia.
Human rights organizations, meanwhile, consider Hungary’s fences erected last year as the first step in efforts by Prime Minister Viktor Orban‘s government to dismantle the country’s asylum system.
The country has built two closed container camps late last month and they are intended for refugees who are still in the asylum procedure.
Dublin agreements
EU Member States may return refugees according to the so-called Dublin agreements to the first safe country which they had reached in the EU. In many cases this is Hungary, because refugees now often opt for that route to get to Western Europe. Prime Minister Orbán hates the current asylum seekers coming. He has long argued for a stricter approach to reduce the number of refugees.
His attitude and the new law led to sharp criticism from the international community. UN Commissioner Grandi calls on European countries to suspend the “Dublin transfers” until the Hungarians will bring their policies in line with European and international law.
He says that since March 28 in the camps 110 people have been detained, including children. Orbán denies that the asylum seekers re jailed. He points out that the refugees can leave the camps indeed, through an opening which opens in Serbia.
“Our star has no political connotation.” That says Heineken [beer corporation] in response to a possible ban in Hungary of the red star in the brand image of Heineken. The conservative government in Hungary wants to ban the use of communist symbols such as the hammer and sickle and the red star. …
Since time immemorial, Heineken has a star on their label. “The star is an ancient symbol of brewers from the Middle Ages”, said a spokesman for Heineken about this. …
Last week, the Hungarian Deputy Prime Minister Semjen said that the red star of Heineken “clearly has political content”. According to the bill offenders may get prison and may be fined up to 7 million euros.
This reminds me of when Turkish right-wing nationalists objected to red bricks in the building of a non-nationalist Turkish workers’ organisation, as these bricks supposedly made the building ‘communist’. Probably, these Turkish nationalists had never loked at the, mainly red, Turkish national flag.
Combat au bout de la nuit (Fighting Through the Night) is a marathon, 285-minute documentary detailing the social crisis in Greece, from veteran Canadian director Sylvain L’Espérance.
The film opens with a debate in the Greek parliament. We see the speaker of the house reading through a new law affecting the judiciary. He raises one article of the new bill after another, calls for a vote and then in a monotone declares a majority in favour. In fact, there are only three deputies sitting in the chamber. None of them raises a hand to vote. One of the deputies objects and explains that she opposes the bill. She notes that nobody is voting in favour. Her objections are simply ignored by the speaker and the bill is passed.
Additional footage in L’Espérance’s documentary deals with the appalling plight of African and Arab refugees in Greece forced to fish food from rubbish bins in order to eat. Having fled poverty and war in the hope of earning enough money in Europe to provide for their families back home, they retrieve worn-out shoes from the garbage to sell at a night market for a few euros. The make-shift homes of Roma are crushed by bulldozers hired by property speculators intent on their next profitable developments.
Volunteer doctors in Athens administer to the many thousands of ordinary Greeks unable to pay for elementary medical care. An individual who works without pay in a clinic for patients without health insurance tells the filmmakers: “We are trying to avert a humanitarian catastrophe in times of upheaval. It is my duty to help.”
If the situation was bad in 2014, it is even worse two years later when the filmmaker return to do additional reporting on the social disaster.
The film, to its credit, polarises audiences. The right-wing Die Welt newspaper, which has fully supported the savage austerity measures imposed on the Greek people, was scandalised by Fighting Through the Night, which dares to point a finger at the German government and the European Union as guilty parties. “A monster…..Formless, unbelievably redundant…. a film for those with a fetish for cleaners,” fumed the paper.
The film’s criticisms of the ruthless policy of the EU and German government are entirely justified. We know that the Greek debt crisis is much worse than it was when the EU began implementing austerity.
The synopsis of Fighting Through the Night also points out that the capitulation of the Syriza-led government headed by Alexis Tsipras “led to a third memorandum imposing even harsher measures than the previous ones”.
This video says about itself:
1945 (Fortyfive) – Ferenc Török Film Clip (2017)
15 February 2017
The shimmering heat of a summer’s day in rural Hungary in August 1945. A kind of torpor envelops the village. The drug store owner is getting ready for his son’s wedding, the signalman is changing the points at the station, and the coach driver is waiting for customers.
Two strange men descend from the train, clad in black. They are father and son; survivors of the Holocaust. They walk in silence behind a waggon on which they are transporting two boxes. Rumours spread like wildfire through the village. Do the boxes contain powder, perfume and soap, and are these men going to compete with the local chemist shop?
Are they relatives of the former shop owner, a Jew who was first denounced and then deported? Fear soon spreads throughout the community, for many of them were involved in the crimes of the recent past – whether it be betrayal, silence or theft. Things that were almost forgotten now come to the fore with a vengeance. The past is not dead. It has not even passed.
Director: Ferenc Török
Writers: Gábor T. Szántó, Ferenc Török
Stars: Péter Rudolf, Bence Tasnádi, Tamás Szabó Kimmel
The Stefan Steinberg article continues:
1945
1945 is a powerful film by Hungarian director Ferenc Török, which examines the issue of anti-Semitism in Hungary during and after World War II.
Two men dressed in black, evidently Jews, descend from a train and commence walking toward a nearby village. They are transporting two large boxes.
Their arrival in the village causes consternation. The father and son are survivors of the Holocaust. Are they seeking to regain their property, their house and their shop, which have been occupied (stolen) by local Hungarians led by the village mayor? Will other Jews with the same goal follow them?
Dear Kitty. Some blog 