Street protest over government overhaul of academic bodies

Hungarians took to the streets of central Budapest on Sunday 2 June to protest plans to overhaul the country’s leading scientific research body, which they see as part of a wider government attempt to curb academic freedom, writes Marton Dunai for Reuters.

Right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who took power in 2010, has tightened controls over public life, including the courts, the media, universities and scientific research, putting him on a collision course with the European Union.

In its latest move, the government has said it plans to strip the 200-year-old Hungarian Academy of Sciences of its network of research institutions and hand over their buildings and assets to a new governing council. News website Index.hu reported last Tuesday that the government was now drawing up draft legislation for the plan. The academy said on Wednesday that the government wanted “total political control” of vital research.
Full report on the Reuters site