Far-right 'hijacking' Hungary protests

Riot police call in reinforcements as clamour for prime minister's resignation gains strength

Daniel McLaughlin, Budapest
Sunday September 24, 2006
The Observer

Far-right radicals threatened to use violence to oust Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany last night, as Budapest witnessed the largest demonstration in a week of protests aimed at forcing out the socialist leader, who has admitted lying to the nation.
Tens of thousands of people massed outside parliament by the River Danube, as riot police with tear gas and water cannon took up positions around Budapest. Meanwhile, the city's mayor warned that nationalist football hooligans were intent on wreaking havoc.
After Gyurcsany admitted last Sunday to lying about the dire state of the economy to win re-election in April, thousands of people have protested peacefully each night demanding that he step down, but a few hundred rioters have clashed with police.
The conservative Fidesz opposition party withdrew its support for yesterday's rally after warning of violence, but far-right groups encouraged people from across Hungary to converge on Budapest to try to oust the defiant Gyurcsany. 'We are prepared to get rid of this government by radical means, like they did in 1956 - in a violent way, if they will not heed the word of peace,' said Kemal Gyorgy Ekrem, a notorious far-right activist who claimed to be a spokesman for the demonstrators. Most people have condemned the far right's attempts to invoke the memory of October 1956, when thousands of Hungarians died in an uprising against Soviet rule.

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