Freedom Fights for Survival in Hungary
In trying to extinguish Central European University, Viktor Orban has attacked one of the last remaining bastions of liberty in his country.
Since Viktor Orban’s return to power in Hungary in 2010, the country’s institutions have one by one come under the direct political control of the head of government: the constitutional court, the central bank, museums, television, and radio broadcasting.
As independent civil society has contracted in Hungary, the remaining centers of freedom have acquired special importance. Among the most important of those free places is Central European University. Small but acclaimed, CEU was created in 1991 to liberate academic life in the region from the dogmas of the communist era.
