Protesters in Hungary call on tax chief to step down: Organisers say that 10,000 people took to the streets in Budapest on Sunday to show their anger at the government’s alleged corruption. They are demanding the resignation of Ildikó Vida, head of Hungary’s tax collection agency along with some of her colleagues.
Press TV reports: The demonstration came after Washington banned six unidentified Hungarian officials in October from entering the United States for “either engaging in or benefiting from corruption.”
Vida, who is the first of the six officials to go public, has denied the accusations and refused to step down.
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Gábor Vágó, a former Hungarian lawmaker from the Politics Can Be Different party, called on Vida and her colleagues to resign and urged the European Union to investigate the tax agency.
“If they don’t resign by the 17th (of November), we will have to consider the best methods of civil disobedience to force the government to back down,” Vágó said.
Hungarian government has repeatedly said it does not know the names of the banned officials, calling on Washington to provide “credible information” about the alleged corruption.
The bans have negatively affected Washington-Budapest relations, which have deteriorated since Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán came to power in 2010.
Orbán said last week that the US was wrong to consider Hungary’s support for the Russian-backed South Stream gas pipeline project and Russia’s expansion of Budapest’s only nuclear power plant as a “rapprochement to Russia.”
Sunday’s protest rally came after a similar demonstration in October against a proposed Internet tax which forced the government to backtrack on the idea.
