Hungarian police disperse rally against Prime Minister Gyurcsany

October 23, 2006

Amid the official celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the anti-stalinist Hungarian uprising of 1956, a group of about three thousand people who are calling for the resignation of the Prime Minister, Mr. Ferenc Gyurcsány, are being blocked from entering Kossuth square.

The square, in front of the Parliament building, has been the venue of anti-Gyurcsány protests for weeks and also hosted the October 23 official state rally. The police (some of them mounted) have used tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets against the demonstrators.

The tearful demonstrators have used some of the props of the celebrations to build barricades and even started up a tank, parked in the center of town to recall the events in 1956.

The demonstrators have been forced to withdraw along Alkotmány utca, Bajcsy-Zsilinszky út and Károly körút in the direction of the separate memorial rally convened by the main opposition party, Fidesz, on Astoria square. The tens of thousands there seem to be peacefully sympathetic to the cause of the dispersed demonstrators.

There seem to be several wounded among both the demonstrators and the police.