This group of dark-skinned men and women, consisting of old and young people, teenagers and widows, represents the advance guard of a massive undertaking currently underway in Hungary. Under Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's plan to promote national renewal and moral rearmament, more than half of all the unemployed nationwide are to be put back to work.

...They are among 300,000 Hungarians who will soon be performing "community" work under a new law, which dictates that anyone who is out of work for more than 90 days in a row forfeits the right to social welfare and membership in the social insurance system.

Forced labour by other name. They don't mention that the groundwork was laid in the new constitution, which made labour a citizens' duty (one of a number of more serious problems with it than the clerical madness on which international media focused). Nor do they mention the historical precedents: during WWII, the then regime established a "labour service" for Jews and other elements of society not trusted as soldiers, to dig ditches and carry supplies under gunfire in the war fought as ally of Nazi Germany.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

The things Prime Minister Orbán and his friends in the Fidesz Party are prescribing don't always make sense. However, there is no mistaking that they are in a hurry. The package of laws, ordinances and guidelines to define labor policies, which Orbán got off the ground in only 15 months, reads like the minutes of a top-down coup d'etat.

Orbán's concept of moral renewal and economic rehabilitation for Hungary has several tenets: Those without work are to be given work; those who are already working should work more in the future, but without being paid more; in the interest of the country's "stability," those who hold political power today should be allowed to remain in office for as long as possible; and those who once had power and did not use it for the benefit of the people should now be punished.

...Prosecutors are even looking into whether they can charge the former premiers with the "political crime" of incurring government debt, which is not considered a statutory offence today...

The government that supposedly defied the IMF and the EU over austerity is now, as I predicted, in full swing to implement its own "reforms", complete with balanced budget requirement; and now wants to divert public attention and crush potential opponent leaders at the same time (after failing to nab them for corruption) with retroactively valid laws.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

All of this produces jobs for men like Daniel Papp. As a media expert and the co-founder of the radical right-wing Jobbik Pary, he was long known only to the initiated. But in April they catapulted the pale 32-year-old to the position of editor-in-chief of the news office at the new MTVA media fund. The MTVA is the umbrella organization covering the formerly independent state radio and television stations, as well as the MTI news agency.

...Orbán was criticized for the details of this media law during Hungary's six-month presidency of the European Council, which lasted until the end of June. But that was the extent of the criticism. Otherwise, he was allowed to continue chipping away at the framework of Hungarian democracy. He also declared that he would ensure that Hungary, which had not allowed itself to be dictated to by Vienna in 1848 and Moscow in 1956, would not accept orders "from Brussels" now either.

All of his influential friends from the major European parties -- from European Commission President José Manuel Barroso to European Council President Herman van Rompuy, and from French President Nicolas Sarkozy to German Chancellor Angela Merkel -- mean well when it comes to Orbán. They praise the Hungarian premier instead of chiding him. "As far as the Germans are concerned, I have not noticed any efforts that we would be forced to interpret as an intervention," Orbán said while standing next to Merkel in Berlin in May.

Orbán actually said in a speech before party delegates that they "handed out a few bops for the impetuous quarrelers of the European Parliament, a few slaps fell, we handed out a few friendly rabbit-punches". (This is not just strange to hear from the then leader of the EU Presidency, but rather the opposite of the truth: it was Daniel Cohn-Bendit et al who made Orbán squirm.)

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

The part the article couldn't include are the newest excesses of the far-right, in connection with two music festivals. Sziget (lit. "Island") is one-week open-air music event on an island in Budapest (which was like Woodstock at its beginnings but now more aimed at more well-off Euro-paying guests). Magyar Sziget is a counter-event established a few years ago by a small far-right group (the which BTW got an email from Norwegian assassin Breivik). This year's Magyar Sziget wasn't just a big international meeting of neo-Nazis (with a BNP leader included as speaker, and a tribute for Breivik), but the leader of yet another new far-right paramilitary made an open, explicit call for racist murders – so far the only consequence is that "police is investigating".

Meanwhile, at a far-right protest at the entrance of Sziget, a guy who is both an MP for Jobbik and an honorary president of the aforementioned group held an openly anti-Semitic speech, then tried to lead a storm across police cordons, only to make use of his member of parliament's immunity once he was detained. Jobbik refused to fire him. No comment of significance from the government, either.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

They are among 300,000 Hungarians who will soon be performing "community" work under a new law, which dictates that anyone who is out of work for more than 90 days in a row forfeits the right to social welfare and membership in the social insurance system.

I do not know if this is a case right now here in Australia but similar thing was going on during Howard's years (and not for Roma people). They call it "work for dol" and people are forced to go and clean public spaces.
Am I approving this? NO. Find them real JOB preferably according to their qualifications or at least similar and then force them to take it or they will lose dol. But who would bother...
The purpose of this is to humiliate people enough to go and work whatever they can find...if they can find...

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind...Albert Einstein

It's hard to make sensible, restrained, non-Godwin comment on this.

The media situation has all the overtones of Berlusconi - but the other laws seem worse. The prosecution of politicians over policy choices looks like an effective way of keeping the opposition down. The forced labour laws seem like a handy way of controlling dissent that austerity is going to  generate - and of course it can be used to create tribal conflicts, which is a classic hard-right route to power.