Parliament unanimously accepted the law, but there are a few things the Medical Board vehemently disagrees with, such as doctors now being forbidden from running a private practice parallel to their state-financed job and the sheer amount of administrative crap that now needs to be done on short notice.
And what a surprise, Russia is so committed to not interfering in the internal affairs of Belarus that they issued an arrest warrant for Tsikhanouskaya.
Edited by amitakartok on Oct 7th 2020 at 9:29:00 PM
In the name of being honest
It's Minsk's arrest warrant. Russia is simply honoring it, probably to show Lukashenko the benefit of further integration, which is all they care about. A bit different than Moscow itself issuing a warrant.
https://belsat.eu/en/news/freestyle-skier-alyaksandra-ramanouskaya-fired-from-national-team/
Alyaksandra Ramanouskaya is in hot water for protesting against the militsiya (especially OMON) on confronting protestors and reporters.
Emphasis on "temporary." Azerbaijan has outright stated they don't intend to halt their advance.
Edit: Aaaaaand apparently they broke it within a few hours.
Edited by somerandomdude on Oct 11th 2020 at 8:21:28 PM
ok boomer
A professor over at the University of Cambridge published an analysis of what kind of crap the Hungarian ministry of education is trying to put into fifth grade elementary school history textbooks:
- Crediting imaginary merits and importance to early Hungarians and imaginary ancestors rather than admitting that these people were basically mercenary raiders for hire, as pretty much every Western historical source agrees.
- Trying to marginalize the scientific consensus of Uralian descent supported by linguistic research as just one theory among many and instead pushing the Hun descent found in ancient myths.
- Systematically pushing the validity and credibility of Christianity before other beliefs.
- Systematically portraying autocratic systems as superior to democracy.
They're flat-out trying to brainwash the kids now.
Edited by amitakartok on Oct 11th 2020 at 8:43:22 PM
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
That is very worrysome. May I ask which historical characters they are particulary praising and which examples they use to highlight the superiority of autocratic systems?
I'm betting Romania are feeling uncomfortable about Hungary right now, too, with the whole Transylvania thing.
Oh, Romania's doing the same thing. Just recently they were trying to push a law that declares the anniversary of Transylvania's liberation from Hungarian oppression a national holiday and orders the government to fund propaganda to that end.
President Iohannis, himself being of Transylvanian Saxon descent, vetoed it. Of course, he also held a speech in April where he interpreted a bill towards Transylvanian autonomy as the social democrat opposition trying to play Transylvania over to Hungary using the COVID pandemic as cover, which royally pissed off Orbán and co. and got Iohannis fined by Romania's own anti-discrimination agency.
Can you give a link to said analysis?
Well, I assumed there would be an English article too if the study was made by the University of Cambridge. That would have been insightful to the non-Hungarian readers too.
Which is why I usually don't bother linking to my sources: they tend to be in Hungarian.
Belarusian expats in Japan are conducting protests to support protestors in Minsk.
So... what is the latest on the protests in Belarus? I'm not sure if things have stalled out, or if Western news just isn't covering them as much. Last I heard, the opposition was calling for a national strike or something like that.
Checking in via Bel Sat news, which is pro-opposition news from Poland IIRC.
The president wants universities to kick out anyone who has pro-opposition sympathies. Also includes professionals, including those in the civil service.
Another is for the militsiya to raid houses belonging to pro-opposition supporters and arrest them, even if it means draggin them out.
Some of the opposition figures arrested were allowed to leave. Some chose to go to Europe or North America.
And the Russians are accusing Europe of plotting a revolt.
Stop Killing My Titles
Meanwhile, we still have our own protests.
Military gendarmes were ordered to monitor crowds as tens of thousands of people gathered in defiance of pandemic restrictions. They vented their frustration about the abortion ruling and more broadly at perceived restrictions on their freedoms under the right-wing ruling party, Law and Justice.[...]
The mainly Catholic country already had one of Europe's most restrictive abortion laws. The ruling that declared it unconstitutional to terminate pregnancies for congenital defects amounts to a near-total ban.
The deployment of the military and riot police has sparked alarm for NG Os who accuse law enforcement of using excessive force against peaceful protesters.
The nationwide strike and protests — largely organized by Women's Strike, a women's rights initiative — come amid a deepening standoff between angry demonstrators and Poland's deeply conservative government, which pushed for last Thursday's court ruling and has vowed not to back down.
Opinion polls show a majority of Poles oppose the constitutional court's ruling and the protesters have even found support from unexpected groups, including farmers and miners. [who had their own separate protests beforehand]
Another opinion poll on Wednesday showed falling support for the Law and Justice party.
Poland's most powerful politician, ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski said in the past that pregnancies involving even fetuses that are badly damaged and have no chance of survival outside the womb should "still end up in a birth, so that the child can be baptised, buried, have a name".[...]
On Tuesday evening, he called on his party's supporters to defend churches "at any cost."
He spoke to a camera backed by Polish flags in an announcement that some critics compared to a notorious announcement of martial law in 1981 by communist leader Wojciech Jaruzelski to crackdown on anti-regime protests.
Some saw Kaczynski's words as an incitement to violence. The 71-year-old also holds the job of deputy prime minister in charge of police and security services.[...]
On Sunday, women entered Polish churches to disrupt masses, confronted priests with obscenities and spray-painted church buildings, while members of some far-right groups and soccer fans surrounded churches to defend them, in some cases provoking skirmishes with protesters and police.
Szymon Holownia, the founder of a new centrist political movement, said that Kaczynski, "in the name of defending the church wants to set fire to the country and drown it in blood".
The conservative rulers have sought to depict the huge crowds of mostly young people led by women's rights activists as "fascists."
"Left-wing fascism is destroying Poland," read a Tuesday headline on state TV, echoing language that US President Donald Trump has also used.
My current concern is that tepid liberals might stop supporting the protests over "property damage". To that end, the protests have been trying to avoid churches and are instead set up elsewhere. Not that it stopped the nationalists from trying to stir up shit.
grah
From what I heard, Duda is now carefully talking about revising the ban to make an exception for fetuses incapable of survival while still banning the abortion of ones who are merely sick with things like Down syndrome.
Stop Killing My Titles
I'll believe it when I see it. This token resistance has been a trick Duda used multiple times during his tenure to dupe people into thinking he's not Kaczyński's marionette.
He'll bow his head down once it looks like the protests are dying down.
Meanwhile, I just got the info that the freshly appointed Education Minister Czarnek (who famously said that "LGBT people are not normal", among other things) is threatening universities to slash their fundings. The reason? Most universities in Poland decided to postpone their classes to let the students participate in the protests freely.
grah
Same in Budapest.
And news are saying that according to polls, PiS' voter support spectacularly tanked due to these protests, currently standing at only 26%.
Edited by amitakartok on Oct 29th 2020 at 4:39:44 PM
Huh. The protests may have had an effect, because the introduction of the anti-abortion law was postponed pending "further discussion".
Hungarian vice PM (a Christian-Democrat) wants a ban of gender propaganda included into the constitution.
In his opinion, any parent who allows their children to be subjected to gender-reassignment surgery and hormone therapy should immediately have the kid taken away from them by the state and the doctor carrying out the operation disbarred permanently.
So mentally compliment Fidesz for a job well done and go back to opposing them. It's probably unfair to dislike the opposition for a good policy.