Saturday, June 23, 2007
Hungarian journalist is found badly beaten
According to the Hungarian news agency MTI, Irén Kármán, an investigative journalist, film maker and blogger (in Hungarian) on the site of the leading Hungarian newspaper, Népszabadság, was found by some fishermen on Friday on the banks of the Danube, tied and badly beaten.She was taken to hospital in Budapest and, according to the latest reports, her condition has stabilized. For some reason the police is aware of the fact that the attack occurred elsewhere and Ms Kármán was taken to the place where she was found.
Among the many protests and demands for a swift investigation one came from Miklós Haraszti, erstwhile dissident writer and poet, erstwhile member of the Hungarian parliament, now lecturer on democratization and the media and, somewhat ironically, the OSCE representative on freedom of the media.
Irén Kármán is known for her investigation of the oil scam in Hungary, whereby a certain dye was bleached from the state subsidized heating oil in order for the material to be sold as diesel. Her investigations seem to have indicated, not surprisingly, that this sort of a large mafia-type exercise could not have been carried out without involvement on the part of politicians, high-ranking civil servants and the police.
She has had important material stolen from her before and, as she said on her blog, has had threatening e-mails in connection with her work.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Lustration in Poland, riots in Hungary
Two of the new member states of the European Union are in the news: Poland because of Chancellor Merkel's visit, which seems to have yielded some reward for her and because of a new piece of lustration legislation; and Hungary because there have been riots in Budapest again on a national holiday.A long piece that tries to summarize most of what might be happening in those countries is here.
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