2,000 in Budapest March in Rare Public Protest

More than 2,000 people marched through central Budapest on Sunday, applauding calls for freedom, democracy and national independence in a rare, open expression of dissent.

It was the first time in more than 30 years that Hungary’s Communist authorities have tolerated a demonstration of such proportions and the first at which speeches were made.

The loudest cheers came when a dissident, Gyorgy Gado, evoked the memory of Imre Nagy, Hungary’s premier during the 1956 revolution, who was executed after Soviet tanks crushed the uprising.

Police photographed demonstrators, but did not directly interfere with marchers on a national day commemorating an earlier, abortive revolution--the 1848 uprising against Austrian rule.

Sunday’s procession formed at a monument to an 1848 hero, poet Sandor Petofi, whose name has become symbolic of Hungarian resistance to foreign oppression.

A tense confrontation occurred when the procession tried to march on Parliament. Twenty motorcycle patrolmen headed off the demonstrators and directed them away from the building.

The marchers then converged on a nearby shrine, where an eternal flame burns in memory of Lajos Batthany, the leader during the 1848 revolution. Batthany was executed where the shrine now stands.

That uprising to shake off Hapsburg rule failed. But it had a long-term effect on the future relations of what became the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, giving Hungary near-equal status with Austria.

The crowd cheered on Sunday as Gado, a translator and writer, drew parallels between Batthany and Nagy.

‘Eternal Light’

“We hope that the day will come when we also will be able to stand at an eternal light in favor of Imre Nagy,” Gado said.

Nagy is officially a nonperson in Hungary. After he was executed, his body was taken to a remote Budapest cemetery and lies in an unmarked grave.

An experienced Western observer told the Reuters news agency that “the fact of the march itself is unusual, but the key thing is not that they held the march, but that people were allowed to make speeches.”

“This was absolutely different from anything that has gone on before,” he said.

A similar march on the same date last year was broken up by police with nightsticks and tear gas. This time, authorities directed traffic to clear the way for marchers. They attempted to drown out speeches with military music piped through loudspeakers but otherwise kept a low profile.

Demonstrators cheered when another dissident, Tibor Pak, called on Moscow to withdraw battalions stationed in Hungary.

“The same enthusiasm as then (1956) brought you here now,” said Pak, who was imprisoned in the 1960s for anti-regime activity. “The influence of the superpowers have to end here.”

Other prominent opposition figures at the demonstration included writer Miklos Haraszti; Tibor Philipp, who is associated with the Inconnu underground culture movement, and sociologist Ottilia Solt.