What’s happening in Budapest? Chinese volunteer gendarmes won’t let any flags be displayed except the Chinese – VIDEO

tímea szabó tibetian flag chinese
Photo: Facebook/Szabó Tímea

Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Budapest last night and will stay until tomorrow. Ever since before his arrival, Chinese people living in Hungary have been doing some questionable things.

  • Márton Tompos, the vice-president of opposition party Momentum, wanted to put up an EU flag in Budapest but was prevented by Chinese volunteers in red caps.
  • Tímea Szabó, co-chair of the opposition Párbeszéd party, hung a Tibetan flag from her window and within minutes received threats from Hungarian House Speaker László Kövér and the secret service.
  • Within minutes, the Tibetan flag of the president of the Tibetan Aid Society (Tibeti Segítő Társaság) was covered with Chinese flags by Chinese activists on Gellért Hill.

It seems that no flags other than that of China can be displayed in Budapest while Xi Jinping is in the city, Index reports.

This is evidenced by the video that Momentum’s Márton Tompos made at the Elisabeth Bridge, where he wanted to put up EU flags, but red-capped “volunteers” working for the Asian country’s embassy refused to let him do so. He was even questioned about what flags he wanted to put up and why.

“Budapest is full of Chinese volunteer gendarmes in red caps to protect Xi Jinping, aka Winnie the Pooh, from the “unfriendly” Tibetan and Taiwanese flags”, the politician wrote in a comment to the video. “Of course, when the camera came out, they forgot Hungarian immediately, as they spoke the language perfectly well,” he added.

On Wednesday, Tímea Szabó, co-chair of the Párbeszéd party, planned to greet the Chinese president with a Tibetan flag, and hung one from her office window. Shortly afterwards, “the office was informed that László Kövér and the secret service ‘knew about it'”, she wrote.

As she said, the Tibetan flag “is not a forbidden symbol of authoritarianism, it is not indecent, and there is no law against displaying it”. He said that not being able to protest against Chinese “human rights abuses, oppression of Tibet or the battery-isation” was nonsense, and that Viktor Orbán should not be bowing down to “Eastern dictators”.

According to Telex, before the arrival of Xi Jinping, Tibor Hendrey, president of the Tibet Aid Society, stretched a Tibetan flag on the fence of the cross on Gellért Hill, which was covered up by a Chinese flag within minutes by activists.

Hendrey later said that he was checked by the police three times that day. According to witnesses, the police only checked Hungarians at the scene, and no Chinese at all.

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