RFE/RL NEWSLINE 
Vol. 1, No. 90, 7 August1997

HUNGARIAN DEPUTY RESIGNS OVER SECRET SERVICE LINKS. Socialist
deputy Imre Simon said on 6 August he will give up his
parliamentary seat on account of his collaboration with the secret
service during communism, Hungarian media reported. Simon, who is
also a local government leader and member of the European
Parliament, was told by a panel of judges in June that they had found
data on his collaboration with the communist secret service. Simon
said he had been recruited in 1966 after his military service, before
starting to pursue higher education studies. Socialist party deputy
chairman Gyoergy Janosi said the announcement surprised him. The
Socialist party's parliamentary faction and the party's leadership will
discuss the matter.

HUNGARIAN HUMAN RIGHTS OFFICIAL REJECTS GYPSY
COMPENSATION PLAN. The chairman of the parliament's Human
Rights, Minorities and Religious Affairs Committee, Gabor Kis Gellert,
opposes the idea of collective compensation for Hungarian Gypsies
who suffered under the Holocaust, Hungarian media reported on 7
August. According to the Socialist deputy, such a solution, demanded
recently by the National Gypsy Minority Council (See "RFE/RL
Newsline," 4 August 1997), would be unprecedented in Hungarian
history. He said he would prefer a case-by-case compensation, like
that given to other Holocaust survivors

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RFE/RL NEWSLINE 
Vol. 1, No. 91, 8 August1997

HUNGARIAN POLITICIANS' FUTURE TROUBLED BY PhD
DISSERTATION? Data protection commissioner Laszlo Majtenyi ruled
that doctoral dissertations of Prime Minister Gyula Horn and
Independent Smallholders' Party chairman Jozsef Torgyan should be
made available to the general public, Hungarian media reported on 8
August. Journalists who sought access to the texts were refused by
the Academy of Sciences. Horn said he has no objection, and that he
is "standing by" his 1977 dissertation on Yugoslav economic policy.
Torgyan's dissertation, written in 1954, deals with the post World
War II peace treaties, and praises the "extremely generous attitude
displayed by the Soviet Union regarding reparations to be paid by
Hungary." It stresses that contrary to "treaty-breaching imperialists,"
the Soviet Union fought to establish a fair burden for small states.
Smallholder adviser Andras Varhelyi said the attempt to discredit
Torgyan is part of a "disgusting political campaign."

ROMANIA'S "KING OF GYPSIES" DEMANDS HOLOCAUST
COMPENSATION. Florin Cioaba, who calls himself "king" of Romania's
Roma community, is demanding that Germany pay more than 350
million marks in compensation for the extermination of Gypsies at
Auschwitz-Birkenau, Mediafax reported on 6 August. Cioaba told a
press conference that representatives of the Roma communities from
Hungary, Poland, Greece, Austria, Germany and Romania last week
decided at a meeting in Auschwitz to set up a Parliament of European
Roma to defend the interests of the communities in Europe. Cioaba
says 10,100 Gypsies were exterminated at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

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               Copyright (c) 1997 RFE/RL, Inc.
                     All rights reserved.
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