PMO Allocates Additional HUF 950 Million To 1956 Memorial Year Program

  • 8 Dec 2016 9:00 AM
PMO Allocates Additional HUF 950 Million To 1956 Memorial Year Program
The Prime Minister’s Office has allocated an additional HUF 950 million (USD 3.2 million) to the memorial year program tasked with organizing events at home and abroad commemorating the 60th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian uprising, with the spending under the leadership of revisionist historian Mária Schmidt, reports index.hu.

The PMO has done so without specifying what the funds are to be used for, only that they be made available immediately.

The last-minute appropriation brings to HUF 14.5 billion (USD 50 million) public funds allotted to date for this purpose.

News of the allocation follows Schmidt’s announcement that she had purchased business print-weekly Figyelő, thereby joining the ranks of individuals belonging to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s inner circle of trusted advisors to acquire a media outlet.

Many elements of this year’s memorial celebration have sparked controversy, perhaps none more than the decision to focus on the street fighters who took up arms against their Soviet oppressors, while virtually ignoring the role of Imre Nagy and other reform-minded communist politicians and intellectuals, many of whom were subsequently sentenced to death or given lengthy prison sentences.

Source: The Budapest Beacon

Republished with permission

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