I am pleased to announce that my readership has gone over 450,000 readers.
Praise Yeshua and pass more ink!
Hungarian lawmakers on Tuesday approved legislation that could force the closure of a prestigious Budapest university founded by US billionaire investor George Soros, sparking fresh protests.
Praise Yeshua and pass more ink!
Hungarian lawmakers on Tuesday approved legislation that could force the closure of a prestigious Budapest university founded by US billionaire investor George Soros, sparking fresh protests.
The English-language Central European
University (CEU), set up in 1991 after the fall of communism, has long been seen as a hostile
bastion of liberalism by Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government.
MPs in
the 199-seat parliament, dominated by Orban's Fidesz party, voted 123 in favour
and 38 against the legislation affecting foreign universities operating in
Hungary.
The new rules ban institutions outside
the European Union from awarding Hungarian diplomas without an agreement
between national governments.
They
will also be required to have a campus and faculties in their home country --
conditions not met by the CEU.
Failure
to comply would mean the CEU could not accept new student intakes from 2018,
and possibly close by 2021.
The
CEU said Tuesday it would contest the constitutionality of the bill.
"The
new law puts at risk the academic freedom not only of CEU but of other
Hungarian research and academic institutions," the university said in a
statement.
The bill is seen as a fresh attack on the
Hungarian-born globalist elitist Soros, 86, often accused by Orban of seeking
to undermine Europe by backing open borders and pro-refugee policies.
- 'Unfair advantage' -
The
legislation, put forward last week and rushed through parliament in a
fast-track procedure, triggered a large protest in Budapest on Sunday and has
drawn international condemnation.
The US
State Department had called for the proposal to be withdrawn, while an open
letter was signed by over 900 academics around the world including 18 Nobel
prize-winning economists.
"If
we want to be a shining beacon of human rights in the world... then Europe
can't remain silent when civil society members like the Central European
University in Budapest are being stifled," German President Frank-Walter
Steinmeier said Tuesday in a speech to European MPs in Strasbourg.
Orban
said Monday the future of the CEU depends on the conclusion of a treaty between
the governments of Hungary and the United States within the next six months.
Orban has accused the university of
"cheating" and of having an "unfair advantage" over local
institutions -- allegations rejected by the CEU as "defamatory".
Registered
in New York state, the CEU teaches over 1,400 students from more than 100
predominantly central and eastern European, as well as post-Soviet Union
nations.
It
ranks among the top 200 universities in the world in eight disciplines,
including top 50 rankings in political science and international studies.
More
than 5,000 people staged a protest around its downtown Budapest campus later
Tuesday. Sunday's march drew an estimated 10,000 demonstrators.
Within
five days, President Janos Ader must either sign the legislation into force or
order a review by the constitutional court.
Human
Rights Watch on Tuesday called on Ader not to sign the bill, denouncing what it
said was Hungary's "contempt for critical voices in society".
A law
clamping down on foreign-funded non-governmental organizations, (NGOs)
including many by Soros, is expected to go before parliament later this month.
No comments:
Post a Comment