Calm anniversary at TOL Hungary

Calm anniversary

September 20th, 2007 by robertnemeth

Some were afraid, but Budapest remained calm on the first anniversary of last year’s riots. There were some protests, but with much less participants than last year, and this time there were no clashes between the protesters and the police. Some MPs were abused though.

The well-known speech (”we screwed it up…”) of Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány was leaked to the media on September 17, 2006. (Note: still no one knows who leaked it.) On that day, several thousands of protesters gathered in front of the Parliament, the next day, many of them besieged the public television.

Because of this, some were expecting a “hot autumn” in Budapest again. There were some small protests already at the weekend, but the anniversary came on Monday. However, much less protesters gathered at the Parliament this time. They proclaimed the “Plan Y”, meaning the blockade of some ministries - but only a dozen of them blocked the entrance of one, until the policemen sent them away. The whole protest was finished by 11pm.

Nevertheless, when the MPs wanted to leave the Parliament, some protesters attacked them: they stopped some cars and threw bottles and cans on them, except on one: Mária Wittner, member of the Fidesz-faction who is a frequent participant of right-wing and extremist events. She received applause and ovation.

The next day, on the anniversary of the TV-siege, protesters gathered in front of the public television again, but only a few hundreds of them. They gave a petition to the executives of the TV, there were some speeches, but then they went home.

However, before the end of the protest, but already after dusk, some young guys in masks appeared among the protesters. They were shouting some slogans, and then headed towards the city center. Members of the riot police started to chase them, sprayed even some tear gas, but suddenly, the 50-60 masked guys disappeared. The policemen were looking for them for at least an hour, but they found only some. Five were taken into custody.

So, there was basically a protest without protesters. Although some protests are still on the way, now no one really counts on the repetition of the clashes. There is only one “critical” day left: the national holiday of October 23.