'No Freedom In Hungary'

Northern Advocate, 18 June 1947, Page 7

'No Freedom In Hungary'

(Rec. 11.30 a.m.) BUDAPEST, June 17. The leader of the Freedom Party iM. Sulyok) said today that he would arrange no more political speeches, risking open brawls with Communists, unless the Communist Minister of the Interior (M. Laszlo Rajk) guaranteed the party freedom of assembly. Party members did not want to start civil warThe brawl yesterday at Szeged, where Communists broke up a Freedom Party meeting, “confirmed what I openly declared in Parliament—that in Hungary there is a police state where there is no freedom of speech or assembly.” FIERCE BRAWL Nearly 150 Communists with lengths of weighted rubber hose, brass knuckledusters and long-handled weapons like hatchets called fokos, broke the meeting held in the ballroom of the Risza Hotel at Szeged. The meeting had been held expressly to determine if there was freedom of speech and assembly in Hungary. Some 700 resentful men and women in the audience in a fierce brawl fought back with fists and wooden chairs. They even pushed one Communist out of a second-storey window.

Five Freedom Party supporters were taken to hospital with serious head wounds from fokos.

Entry to the meeting was by Freedom Party membership card only, but before the meeting started burly, sullen Communists pushed the doorxeepers aside and lined themselves against the wall of the ballroom.

LONG LIVE STALIN’’ There were shouts of "Long live Stalin.” Rotten eggs began to fly toward the platform. Thirty policemen assigned to watch the meeting rushed into the ballroom with rifles, broke up the fight and declared the meeting adjourned. In the square outside, 500 police dispersed about 15,000 persons who had assembled. Numerous small fights broke out in the square. The police in many instances smashed rifle butts into the face of belligerent persons who would not move back. VOICELESS PEOPLE’ The deposed Hungarian Premier (M. Ferenc Nagy) told a Press conference iii Washington today that he had come to the United States to speak for the "voiceless people” of his country, and make every effort within the framework of international law to end Soviet domination of Hungary. He was insistently questioned by reporters from Left Wing publications about the alleged plot to overthrow the Hungarian Government, the discovery of which was the reason he was forced to resign. He replied that last December the police produced evidence which made him agree to the prosecution of conspiracy charges, “but now that I can have no further doubts about the methods and aims of the Communists and their police, I can say I don’t believe there was a conspiracy against a democratic form of Government. “Among those accused there might have been some people who said and wrote fantastic, childish things, but neither the leaders nor the rank and file of the Smallholders' Party had plotted against the country. ’ DEADLOCK IN MOSCOW Negotiations in Moscow by the Hungarian Finance Minister (M. Miklos Nvarady) and the Trade Minister (M. Sando Ronai) on the wider aspects of ! financial and economic relations between Hungary and the Soviet have reached a deadlock. M. Nyarady is returning to Budapest to consult his Government, and then going back to Moscow.