Sullen Communists Start Riot In Hungary

Chronicle (Levin), 18 June 1947, Page 5

Sullen Communists Start Riot In Hungary

Press Assn.

By Telegraph

-Comiriahi

Received Tuesday, 7 p.m. LONDON, June 17. Neai'ly 150 Communists with weigbt3d rubber hose, brass knuckleduster--uid longhandled weajJons liice hatchet. ^•alled ' ' fokos ' broke ujj a Freedon. Party meeting in the ballroom of tli. Bisza hotel at. Szeged. The meeting had been held expressly to deterinine n there was freedom of ■ speeeh ann assembly in Hungary. Seven hundred resentful Hungariai, men and women in the audience, in » liloody brawl, fought baek with fistand wooden chairs and even pushed ont Gommunist out of a second stores •window. Frve Freedom Party supporters .vere taken to hospital with serious .iead wounds from the fokos. Entry to the meeting was by Freedom Party membership card only ou! oefore the meeting started burlv sullen Jommunists pushed the doorkeepers nside and lined themselves against tlie wai! of tlie ballroom. There wert iliouts of "Long Live Htalin". Rotteu ■ggs began to flv towards the speaaers platform. Thirtv grey-clad poiicemen who were assigned to watch the meeting, pushe-i into the ballroom with rilies, oroke up tlie light and declared the meeting adjourned. Five hundred poliee then dispersed •iliout 15,000 persons who had as sembled in the Square outside the liotei. Numerous small iights broke out in the Square and the poliee in many in .stances smashed rifle butts into the raees of belligerent persons who woulo not move back. The poliee chief ' threatened to use gunlire t,o' dispersc .,he erowd but there was 110 firing. Reuter's hroadcast reported that tiif ; Freedom Party leader, Air. Deszo Hui yok, who denouneed Hungary as - a "Poliee State", had agreed not to speak in public until the future of ins Freedom Party had been settled in (lis eussion with the Minister of Jnterior. Mr. Raja Sulyok was unable to _ speak at the meeting at Szeged beeause of his agreement with the Alinister of Interior. The coiTOspondent added that it is aiinounced that 13 of Hungary 's most important banks will be immediately put "in the hands of commissars. Three leading Budapest lianlcs will (ie handed over, one to a Comnmnist coinmissai', oue to a Socialist commissar, and Ihe third bank to a commissar nominated oy tlie Freedom Party.