Update on the Hungarian philosophers

Stevan Harnad has provided us with this update. (See also Agnes Heller's column in Le Monde). 

Hungary: FUD Campaign and Constitutional Revision 

The harassment campaign against left-liberal philosophers in Hungary might be losing some of its momentum, thanks in part to international protests and scrutiny and in part to the integrity and independence of the Hungarian judiciary. See the ongoing postings on the American Association for the Advancement of Science's ScienceInsider website (following below the Feb 4 article): http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/02/hungarian-academicians-blast-government.html  

There is reason to believe that the open international scrutiny that the philosopher affair has drawn from the German and French press, the Open Letter from 67 external and honorary members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences', the American Philosophical Association's Eastern Division Open Letter, the AAAS Science/Insider and Chercheurs sans Frontières -- scrutiny that the anonymous poster(s) to ScienceInsider as well as Professor Palinkas (who is President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and former minister in the current ruling party's prior term of office) seem to see as interference in Hungarian internal affairs, if not outright obstruction of justice -- may be having a positive influence on the course of events in Hungary.

In particular: 

1. two of the original accused's cases (Weiss, Radnoti) have been dropped;
2. the special commissioner Gyula Budai, has tried to transfer the remaining cases to the Attorney General's Office because of the political campaign against the investigations;
3. the Attorney General's office declined to take over the case from the police; in the case of the four remaining projects under investigation -- Borbely, Vajda, Heller, Steiger -- the Attorney General's office said it will instead provide "special supervision" for the police investigation; 
4. in two anti-defamatory lawsuits by the accused philosophers (Heller, Gereby/Gabor), the courts have found in the accused's favour, and against the right-wing press that had been publishing false information against them.  

It has to be added, however, that a third possible reason for the apparent let-up in the FUD campaign against the philosophers (other than the international scrutiny and the independent judiciary) may just be that the very same authoritarian impetus that gave rise to the new press control law and the attempted criminalization of the philosophers has been redeployed toward using the government's 2/3 parliamentary majority to revise Hungary's Constitution to make it the most regressive in the EU.  

Major reactions to the proposed new Constitution -- a draft of which has already been released (in Hungarian)  -- will be appearing March 15, on the anniversary of the 1848 revolution in Hungary. On March 14, the principal target of the Hungarian Philosopher Affair, Agnes Heller, will be speaking at the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris, and will no doubt address the new Hungarian draft constitution.