Hungarians Again Held Without Trial

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28158, 22 December 1956, Page 11

Hungarians Again Held Without Trial

(Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, Dec. 21. Hungary has revived the dreaded system of police detention without formal arrest or trial—one of the worst features of the Stalin era, according to the “News Chronicle'' today. A decree in the official gazette—which few people see—restored the old order for arrests bringing back the police internment camp system which Mr Imre Nagy abolished in 1953.

The decree is aimed to get production going again. It is directed against “any person whose activities or attitude endanger public order, security and especially the free flow of productive work and traffic.”

Its immediate effect, following many arrests, has been to end all open resistance to the Kadar regime. Workers are back in the factories, but remain idle because of lack of coal and power. Permits from the chief of police in Budapest are now needed to enter the Austrian frontier zone. More Executions

Budapest Radio reported last night that two more men have been executed after sentence of death by a summary Court for terrorism and

illegal possession of arms. Three others, it said, have had their death sentences changed to life imprisonment by the Presidential Council. Prisoners before summary courts have no right of appeal, but may have the sentence varied on a plea for mercy.

The Soviet Army today withdrew further into the background, says Reuter’s correspondent in Budapest. Soviet troops are noticeably less in evidence in Budapest and street patrols by armoured cars are fewer than a week ago. Reports reaching the capital say that troops and equipment have been seen moving eastwards by rail, but there are no reports of any crossing into the Soviet Union.

Observers say they may be moving to provincial centres because of insufficient indoor accommodation for all the troops which occupied Budapest during and after the Hungarian rising. In Vienna, the Vice-President of the United States (Mr Richard Nixon) played Father Christmas to 300 Hungarian children at the Traiskirchen refugee camp. Grinning broadly, he distributed dolls, toy cars, games, oranges and bananas and kissed each child. Each cellophane-wrapped gift was labelled “a gift from the people of America.”

Radio Budapest also announced that the Hungarian Government has evolved a new system to replace compulsory deliveries of agricultural produce to the State, which were ended by decree some weeks ago. The new system allows agricultural producers to sell their produce to the State, to the co-operative farms, to retail private dealers or direct to the customers, according to their own wishes. But the wholesale trade in agricultural produce is to be in the hands of the State alone. The price paid by the State as wholesalers will secure the stability of retail prices.