Hungary Arrests 25 at Rally Honoring Leaders of 1956 Uprising, Dissident Says

Police beat several people and detained at least 25 who took part in a peaceful demonstration to honor leaders executed after the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising, a dissident said Friday.

The detentions occurred during a rally Thursday afternoon in downtown Budapest at which about 400 demonstrators called for democracy and the rehabilitation of Imre Nagy, who was Hungary’s leader in 1956, dissident writer Miklos Haraszti said by telephone.

Haraszti, reached from Vienna at his Budapest apartment, said all those detained were released later.

Government media had reported only five arrested.

15 Witnesses

Dissident Roza Hodosan and underground publisher Gabor Demszky were thrown to the floor of a police station and beaten by officers in front of about 15 other detainees, Haraszti said.

Witnesses to the rally said some people were injured when riot police moved into the crowd, including dissident sociologist Ottilia Solt, who was taken home “in pretty bad shape,” one source reported privately.

Earlier Thursday, demonstrators held a peaceful vigil at unmarked graves in a Budapest cemetery where Nagy and some of his associates are believed buried. They were marking 30 years since official media published a Justice Ministry decree on June 17, 1958, announcing the death sentences.

Demands have increased for the rehabilitation of Nagy and some associates who also were executed or sentenced to prison after the 1956 uprising, which was crushed by 200,000 Soviet troops.