Hungarian News

The Owner of Hungary Raiding the Enemy of the State

• February 22, 2022
• István
• 15 Comments

Putin’s invasion into the separatist areas of Ukraine will undoubtedly be discussed today. From the Hungarian point of view I can’t report a lot. Orbán, up to now declared that his visit to Putin earlier this month was a peace mission, now he reacted with “I talked to the President of the European Council over the situation in eastern Ukraine over the phone tonight. I made it clear that Hungary is part of the common EU position. The talks are ongoing.” This is Orbán’s statement on facebook ►HU in full and it is the only one the regime made at the moment I write this, especially from foreign affairs came complete silence. So I will return tomorrow if there happens something noteworthy, for now to the latest developments in Hungary, where the Putyin pincsi Orbán has again proven that the law is worth nothing and law enforcement serves as a political weapon. But also that the opposition is mobilising well

He is a 70-year-old man with a long white beard, talking calmly with a sonorous voice. He interrupted the interview with telex for giving a small banknote to a man ►HU. His priority. During communist times he did already what people did not expect him to do, so he was writing for an underground publication, he sat in prison under Kádár and in parliament during Hungary’s democratic period for SZDSZ for 2 terms. He is famous for his charity associations and he baptised Ráhel and Gáspár Orbán, the 2 eldest children of the PM. It is said that he brought Orbán in contact with Christianity. He is one of the country’s best-known dissidents, he is regarded as enemy of the state by Orbán, and a few days ago he was still named to be one of the candidates for Hungarian presidency. I am writing about reverend Gábor Iványi.

Iványi is head of the Magyarországi Evangéliumi Testvérközösség, the Hungarian Evangelical Brotherhood. No longer a church since Orbán wrote a new church law, which some say was designed only to change Iványi’s brotherhood from a church into a foundation, as which the brotherhood had to re-register. Iványi did no longer fit into the ideological world Orbán created, while Orbán changed from liberal to far right the reverend has stayed true to himself. The brotherhood operates several charities, a kindergarten, schools, and even a hospital. Iványi went to court, won the case and the entire church law was declared invalid. Orbán created another law and the result remained the same. Iványi again went to court…. The European Court for Human Rights convicted Hungary to recognise the brotherhood as church and to pay 1 billion Forint (2.8 million €) to them in 2017 for the damage caused up to that date. Recognition didn’t take place and the state paid only the amount as determined by the court, but not what they would have to pay for according to Hungarian law to a recognised church. The verdict of judges doesn’t mean anything in Orbán’s Hungary as long as it is not measured in an exact amount of money. As today the state owes the church, although still officially a foundation, the amount of 12 billion Forint (34 million €.) Instead the tax office confiscated nearly 250 million Ft (700 000 €) from a bank account, donations for a connected charity. Iványi said that time that there would be a tax debt indeed, he happily would pay as soon as the state would fulfil the legal obligations ►HU. As things are now he declared to be unable to pay.

Yesterday the office of Gábor Iványi has been raided by the NAV (tax office.) About 30 armed officers came with a search warrant. The reverend wanted to go into the premises of the brotherhood together with the press, but the press was told to stay outside. One officer repeatedly wanted to talk to him only the reverend said, who refused to answer questions as long as he would be alone. The officers did not want to have a look in the offices where documents and computers are, but searched other parts of the building and changed the locks of the office. Iványi said that he was held in pre-trial detention in communist times and that did not stop him to preach or to help the poorest. The times we are today living in are repeating these days, if they aren’t already worse. “I will report to a greater lord, the dwarf little god I don’t care about,” he said about Orbán ►HU.

Párbeszéd (Dialogue, P) had called for a demonstration in front of the brotherhood’s building. Members of all parties within Unity for Hungary came and expressed their sympathy with Iványi. MPs Tímea Szabó (P,) Bernadett Szél (independent,) Zita Gurmai (MSZP,) and MEP Anna Donáth (M) arrived. Still in the street the reverend greeted the representatives and reported that his brother András has been arrested, or taken in hostage, as he said literally. He declared everybody, from deputy over press to demonstrators to be his guests and one tried to enter the building finally. Journalists were immediately called to leave the “crime scene.” NAV officers blocked the stairs and prohibited entering further. It was the arriving police that reached that the reverend together with the members of Hungarian and European parliament were allowed further to get informed – at least they said so. Szél said that it would have been a total chaos and police and tax authority were discussing what information to reveal. Szabó concluded that a constructed procedure against Iványi would be going on, while she does not see that Pál Völner would be sitting in prison and that the 12 billion that the government owes would have been given to Iványi. Gurmai talked about the need for charities seen the fact that there are more and more poor people in Hungary. Szél said that she is shocked that Orbán regards a 70-year-old reverend as his worst enemy. Róbert Dudás (Jobbik) said that Iványi had not received any information from the authorities so far, and added that Rákosi would beg for that recipe from his grave. Anita Potocskáné Kőrösi (also Jobbik) wanted to know why there are no raids at Pál Völner or Lőrinc Mészáros. At some moment Iványi spoke from a balcony. Now the NAV would give him only information as soon as the representatives would leave ►HU.

Since yesterday started a parliamentary session the raid was also topic in parliament. Bence Tordai (P) wanted to know from the government what would go on there. The government owing billions, the constitutional court has ruled in favour of the brotherhood, but Orbán would is looking for revenge. If humanity remained on the government side the campaign would be stopped ►HU. No need to tell a lot about the answer he got: No debt, the government did all well.

And in the evening the next demonstration took place at the address of the brotherhood. Lord mayor Gergely Karácsony said ►HU: “a clear message that those who do not line up will be intimidated.” And “But I think it’s an own goal, it’s a bit feeling like when the police went out to András Pikó before the 2019 elections, and it turned out to be for a completely unfounded claim.” To continue with “I don’t think there is a single Hungarian, who thinks seriously that we don’t have to look for stolen public money in Hatvanpuszta, but with Gábor Iványi.” Hatvanpuszta is the former rural seat of a Habsburg governor over Hungary, now privately owned and completely rebuild by the Orbán family.

Péter Márki-Zay and Péter Róna (candidate for presidency) expressed their solidarity, while Bernadett Szél (ind.), Tímea Szabó (P), Klára Dobrev (DK,) Anna Donáth (M,) Zita Gurmai (MSZP,) Erzsébet Schmuck (LMP,) Katalin Lukácsi (MMM) took part in the evening demonstration. It was reported that reverend Iványi needed the help of a doctor and did not participate from the beginning through health problems. András Jámbor advised the present police should go to Felcsút instead. Arató Gergely (DK) named helping the poor the crime in current times ►HU.

For a long time it was not clear what the official reasoning was. When the NAV issued a statement to MTI ►HU, the state news agency, they claimed that 3 billion Forint (8.5 million Euro) of taxes and contributions of almost 1 300 employees fraudulently have not been paid through Oltalom Karitatív Egyesület (Protection Charitable Association,) which is connected to the brotherhood. In opposite to what Iványi said both last year when confiscation took place as well as yesterday the NAV told MTI that the brotherhood would refuse all payments of taxes and contributions. I looked into the financial reports ►HU learned that in 2020 exactly 180 persons were employed by Oltalom, the total of wages and contributions (only this amount is available) showed that they in average earned less than minimum wage, so they weren’t employed through the entire year, or in part time, or both. The taxes and contributions were at a maximum of 130 million Forint (366 000 €) in 2020, since the report does not tell us about tax breaks for individual employees. The figures for 2019 were less in both number of employees and wages, the number of employees with only 71 even more significantly less. For earlier years the reports are different and do not show these data. Of course it is fraud not to pay taxes and contributions taken away from employees to the tax authority, but to use it for own purposes, which does not look very much to be the case with a man as Iványi without any relevant possessions known to the NAV. For sure the named association has by far not so many employees as stated by the authorities. According to a statement of Iványi I linked above even together with all institutions as schools and hospital and so on there are about 1000 employed by the brotherhood. Nothing of the statement fits into reality.

Again Orbán proved having a terrible bad timing, as we have seen it when the regime started to attack the lord mayor of Budapest Gergely Karácsony for the supposed, but neither planned nor illegal sale of the city hall. The primaries of last year have surprisingly determined Péter Márki-Zay as candidate for PMship, and not Karácsony as expected by most, while Iványi has surprisingly not been nominated for president, but Péter Róna. Using the tax authorities in the interest of oligarchs or for political aims has tradition since 2010, Has the boss started his machinery too fast again? Very likely. In FIDESZ elections or agreements about candidates don’t happen, Orbán decides alone and surprises are impossible. So he thought that the likely candidate will be the winner of the primaries and that the PM candidate alone will decide about the president. Both were wrong assumptions of the man who thinks to own the country. Whether the outcry throughout the country will work against Orbán, since Gábor Iványi is widely regarded as social conscience of the country, time will tell.