Civil rights groups, including the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (TASZ) are questioning the legality of some police actions taken during the October 23 riots. Pictures and videos show police beating and kicking people lying on the ground defenseless, sometimes already in handcuffs; cops throwing…

Remember the lone protester who halted tanks by simply standing in front of them on Beijing’s Tienanmen square in 1989? Now that’s an easy job compared to what this Hungarian protester did to a tank in Budapest on October 23: he hijacked it. Watch the video here. As the picture…

Not that this is funny or something, but so far this is all  we have: a piece of revolutionary folk art we received via smut-specialized sister blog Subba. Creepy, huh?

About 200-300 protesters gathered Wednesday evening on Kossuth tér near Parliament to commemorate the victims of a volley that killed at least 70 and injured 150 demonstrators on that day 50 years ago. This time, police did not intervene and even let three demonstrators cross the double cordon to…

Most major English-language publications ran the story of the October 23 Budapest riots. Even the Khaleej Times had something to say: based in the United Arab Emirates, the paper wants "fresh elections" in Hungary. Kate Connolly reported for major Australian and British news organs from a…

Wonder what happened and where? Having a hard time visualizing events and matching them with locations? To the rescue: Interactive Riot Walkthrough from the guys who brought you the now famous tank video, live reports, loads of pictures and the Barricade Building Contest. Click on the picture below…

Creativity, speed and good improvisation skills are an absolute must if you try to build a street barricade during riots. There is little opportunity to use bring-it-yourself materials, so you have to get on with whatever you find on the scene, and good timing is essential if you want to avoid gas…

In fact, they aren’t yet. By 7:30 pm Monday, fights center on Rákóczi út, with police pushing one wing of the protesters towards the Erzsébet bridge and the other wing towards Blaha Lujza tér. I arrive at the latter just in time to witness the entrée of a bunch of bikers decorated with…

On a second thought, I may opt for peace. I run back home to check my mailbox, and what do I find? An e-mail with a subject that says "Step into the Revolution!". It’s from Lauer Learning, a U.S. company that has developed Freedom Fighter 56, a "historically accurate educational…

Ok, so my next stunt is to try and overtake the slowly moving  police forces and face the water cannons that are squeezing rioters out of Deák tér, herding them towards Astoria where opposition party Fidesz is holding its ’56 memorial event. It’s 7:20 pm, and the crowd looks like…

Back in the black-and-white days of 1956, street fashion was simple and practical, if not a bit dull – as seen on this archive photo of a revolutionary couple.   Fifty years later? Brave selection of colors and patterns (note the perfect matching of belt and scarf) on this couple…

Since I live on Andrássy út (Budapest’s Champs Elysées sans the fancy fashion stores), I simply walk down the road to face a line of riot police blocking my way across Bajcsy Zsilinszky út on Monday, at around 6:20 PM. No traffic on the otherwise busy  four-lane street; many walk in…

It’s 5 o’clock pm on the Nagykörút (grand boulevard) near Oktogon. An old, olive green Hungarian-made Csepel military truck carries what seems to be a load of protesters dressed up in revolution-era historic costumes. Ah, actors. The big white cyrillic letters painted on the back of…

On the day that Hungary planned to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, streetfighting and chaos erupted for the second time in a month in downtown Budapest. Trouble flared very early in the morning, when police started to remove all the people from Kossuth square who…

No, this is not 1956. It’s downtown Budapest just yesterday. Someone on the Committee to Organise Memorials to Revolutions in a REALLY STUPID WAY had the grand idea of stationing a soviet tank int he heart of Budapest on a day that everyone knew would bring trouble. Even better: that someone…

It was exactly 50 years ago, on October 23rd 1956 that the Hungarian Revolution started. The nation, willing to do anything to shake off its Soviet masters took to the streets of Budapest to fight against the hated communist regime. Everything seemed to go the freedom fighters’ way, but after…

On October 23rd rioting started for the second time on the streets of Budapest. This, however, was preceeded by a month that the international media considered way too boring to care about. Oh, how right they were... Anyway, if you really want to know what happened in Hungary between the end of…