Hungary Police Retake Television Building
Police Retake Television Building After Overnight Riots in Hungary
By PABLO GORONDI
The Associated Press
BUDAPEST, Hungary - Police retook the headquarters of Hungarian state television Tuesday after violent clashes with protesters demanding the prime minister resign for lying about the economy.
About 150 people were hurt in overnight riots that Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany called "the longest and darkest night" for the country since the end of communism in 1989.
Several thousand police reinforcements were called to the capital from across the country. Police drove protesters out of the TV building around 3 a.m., more than five hours after the unrest began.
The injured included 102 police officers, one of whom was described on state television as being in satisfactory condition after an operation to remove a bone splinter from his skull.
The protests were triggered by a recording that surfaced Sunday. In it, the Socialist prime minister admitted lying "morning, evening and night" about the economy to win April elections.
Gyurcsany, who has not denied making the statements, refused to resign and called an emergency session of the National Security Cabinet.
By daylight Tuesday, police controlled the area around the TV building, which also includes the National Bank of Hungary and the U.S. Embassy.
In Brussels, Hungary's European Union commissioner, Laszlo Kovacs, said the unrest in Budapest put the "stability and future of the country" at risk.
Gyurcsany said taking to the streets would not solve any of the political problems.
"The street is not a solution, but instead causes conflict and crisis," the prime minister told state-run news wire MTI early Tuesday. "Our job is to resolve the conflict and prevent a crisis."
Smaller protests against the government were held in cities around Hungary but violence was minimal.
Rioters also burned cars and vandalized a large obelisk commemorating Soviet soldiers who were killed driving Nazi forces from Hungary at the end of World War II.
In the recording leaked Sunday to local media, Gyurcsany could be heard admitting that his government coalition, the first in post-communist Hungary to win re-election, had lied about the economy keeping it afloat through "hundreds of tricks" and thanks to "divine providence."
Gyurcsany's comments made in May to the Socialists' group of parliamentary deputies were full of crude remarks.
"We screwed up. Not a little, a lot," Gyurcsany was heard saying. "No European country has done something as boneheaded as we have."
"I almost died when for a year and a half we had to pretend we were governing. Instead, we lied morning, evening and night," he told his fellow Socialists.
President Laszlo Solyom asked Gyurcsany to publicly recognize his error, saying the news of Gyurcsany's remarks had thrown the country into a "moral crisis." He also chastised the prime minister for "knowingly" jeopardizing people's faith in democracy.
Gyurcsany defended himself by saying that was he trying to convince his party about the urgent and inevitable need for comprehensive reforms and to change the political culture.