Former Canadian diplomat with Hungarian origins arrested in China
Canadian ex-diplomat Michael Kovrig was detained in China on Monday, over suspicion of “endangering national security”. His arrest is most probably China’s answer to the detention of Huawei CFO, Meng Wanzhou in Canada.
As one clever reader of 444.hu pointed out, Kovrig has Hungarian ancestry, and he even lived in Budapest during the 1990’s. Kovrig was detained on Monday in Beijing. Kovrig’s arrest was most probably China’s revenge for the detention of Meng Wanzhou, Chief Financial Officer of Huawei.
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Meng Wanzhou’s arrest in Canada
Meng Wanzhou was arrested by Canadian authorities, acting on a U.S. request, at the Vancouver airport while she was changing planes, traveling from Hong Kong to Mexico. She is accused of breaking US sanctions on Iran. Meng Wanzhou has to remain in the Vancouver area as she awaits possible extradition to the U.S. on fraud charges. Huawei has also been accused of releasing data to spies.
Subsequent arrest of Michael Kovrig in China
Michael Kovrig is a former Canadian diplomat who was arrested Monday evening. No one has information concerning where he is now, or where he has been since then. He was accused of “endangering national security”.
Michael Kovrig worked and lived in Budapest during the 1990’s. He was working for a newspaper called Week. He was also the lead singer of a band called Bankrupt between 1996 and 1999. The band had a concert in Budapest last year, at the same time that Kovrig was visiting the Hungarian capital as well. Kovrig joined the band for one song during the concert.
Another Canadian detained
According to the latest news, Kovrig is not the only Canadian, the Chinese are “holding hostage”. Michael Spavor was taken in for questioning, no one heard from him since. The Canadian Foreign Ministry is trying to find out where these two people were taken. Canadian authorities have no clue why Spavor was arrested. He was detained most probably because of the same charges: “endangering national security”.
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Featured image: Facebook.com/kovrig
Source: www.444.hu
Michael Kovrig can be of Hungarian descent but, nevertheless, his name is of a very Romanian origin. More likely than not is that his ancestors were Romanians, hence the original Romanian name which was “Covrig” (which means “Pretzel” in English or “Perec” in Hungarian) and which, same as it was the case for so many other Romanians, through the process of Hungarisation,- as State policy of that time – have had their Romanian names forcefully changed into a “Hungarised” version, during Austro-Hungarian Empire rulling over Transylvania. In this case, the Romanian name “Covrig” has been Hungarised into “Kovrig” (which, by the way, doesn’t have any meaning in Hungarian).