Government says extremists plan to storm Parliament

The metal barriers on Kossuth tér will remain in place until March 15, as the secret services have learned that armed extremist groups are preparing to use violence to occupy the square, Prime Minister's Office leader György Szilvásy told reporters after Wednesday's national security cabinet meeting.

Such groups, including football hooligans and skinheads, gained strength after Fidesz MPs dismantled the metal fence around the square last Friday, he said. Szilvásy warned that they are "arming themselves with weapons particularly dangerous to public security." Certain politicians regularly receive death threats, he added.

It is not known on what Szilvásy based his information, Népszabadság observes, while noting that the Index website has published a nearly three-minute video in which a man wearing a hood says they have semi-automatic weapons, bulletproof vests, slings, crossbows and Slavia air guns. "We are continuously receiving equipment from abroad, from Germany, France, America, that is much more modern than that carried by policemen," he says. "Our group is structured like the IRA and we have a hard core of six people which runs the other cells; 2,000-3,000 people nationwide are built up around these."

Fidesz spokesman Péter Szíjjártó said in response that it is a long-standing and well-known Socialist custom to threaten people with the spectre of allegedly extremist groups which later turn out to be unsubstantiated.

If the government has any information on such a plot, it has a duty to take action against it, he said.

The above story is just one of more than two dozen published today by Hungary Around the Clock, the most comprehensive source of daily English-language news about Hungary. For a free trial of HATC, click here. Hungarian news sources include Népszabadság; Magyar Hírlap; Világgazdaság; Napi Gazdaság; Magyar Nemzet; Népszava; Kossuth Rádió news and Hungarian television's nightly news broadcast.

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