Thousands Protest Against China University In Hungary
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News reporting from Budapest
(Worthy News) – Political tensions are rising after thousands of Hungarians marched through Budapest against government plans to build the European Union’s first Chinese university campus here.
They walked from the Hungarian capital city’s Heroes Square to the parliament building where Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony reminded the crowd about the price of freedom.
Facing more than 10,000 people, he spoke at one point with behind him the superimposed iconic photo of the ‘Tankman,’ an unidentified man standing in front of a column of tanks.
Unable to halt them, the Chinese army massacred at least hundreds of pro-democracy protesters in Beijing in 1989 in what became known as the Tiananmen Massacre.
Karácsony made clear that the Communist regime responsible for such bloodshed should not have a university in Budapest.
He said he dreamed of a nation where politicians would finally answer journalists’ questions amid concerns about a perceived government crackdown on media.
NEW PRIME MINISTER?
However, Karácsony, who wants to become the next prime minister after next year’s elections, declined to answer the questions of a Worthy News reporter while walking to his limousine.
The incident filmed by a local television station went viral on Hungarian social media and pro-government media outlets ranging from newspapers to state-run television.
Karácsony’s press officer tried to keep the reporter at a distance, saying questions would only be answered two days later at a press moment. The incident prompted a government secretary to issue a statement “condemning the treatment” of the journalist. The liberal mayor, a self-declared green independent opposition politician, had come under pressure for allegedly lying about university credentials and his English-language capabilities.
He has denied the charges saying the perceived autocratic Prime Minister Viktor Orbán refused to admit wrongdoing in plans to contract the $1.8 billion Fudan university campus.
The money allocated to the project is more than the Orban government spent on its entire higher-education system in 2019, according to official estimates. Some $1.5 billion of the costs will be provided by a loan from a Chinese bank, leaked documents showed.
STUDENTS HOUSING THREATENED
The project also threatens affordable housing for students, the mayor said, charges denied by the government. Karácsony wants to rename streets around the campus in Budapest, which is due to be completed by 2024. The new street names focus on reported human rights abuses in China.
One will be named after the Dalai Lama – Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader who is viewed as a dangerous separatist by Beijing.
Another, the Free Hong Kong Street, commemorates Hong Kong’s troubled democracy movement.
A third will be called Uyghur Martyrs’ Road, after the ethnic group that the West says faces rights abuses and genocide in Xinjiang, China.
Besides Muslims, minority Uyghur Christians also face severe persecution, according to several well-informed Christian groups and rights activists.
A fourth street, Bishop Xie Shiguang Road, references a reportedly persecuted Chinese Catholic priest.
FIGHT FOR FREEDOM
During Saturday’s protest, demonstrators and organizers told Worthy News that they view their struggle against the university as a new fight for freedom in Europe.
They said the protest came just over 30 years after Hungary ended decades of communist rule. Hungarians had earlier tried to win back their freedom in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, crushed by Soviet troops.
Protestors fear China’s Fudan university would undermine the principles for which Hungarians died. Under the recently changed university charter, students have to declare allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party and its ideology, Worthy News learned.
“Orban and [his right-wing party] Fidesz portray themselves as anti-communists, but in reality, the communists are their friends,” complained university student Szonja Radics.
About two-thirds of Hungarians do not support the Chinese university, according to figures cited by liberal think tank Republikon Institute.
China has denied human rights abuses. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told Worthy News earlier that he saw nothing wrong in cooperating with autocratic governments. “If the foreign policy of any country in the world were based on that we cooperate only with those countries who are in Western understanding democracies, two-third of the world would be out of our foreign policy reach.”
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