Messages to the Ukrainian protestors

Kiev protesters seized the Justice Ministry building at Sunday evening. 

Message from Elena Lukash
Ukrainian Justice Minister, Elena Lukash, has said she will ask the National Security and Defense Council to introduce a state of emergency if rioters do not leave the ministry building. Later the police launched a criminal case over the seizure for which the activist group Common Cause claimed responsibility for. They tell that they captured the building in order to get warmer and did not let the police in Local media reported that no one was hurt during the seizure of the building.
'Ukrainian extremists have released the premises of the Ministry for Justice, as well as of the Ministry for Energy' - wrote the Pravda in the daily hours Monday, and the then refuted the update telling that 'Maidan radicals are still in the building, they let reporters in, but do not let them go upstairs.'
A social initiative ‘United We Stand for Ukraine’ has been launched on Thursday evening by JPP ‘Create for Lithuania’. Georgian and Belarus National Platforms expressed solidarity with Ukrainians. A series of solidarity protest began in European cities to support for Ukrainians’ democratic values and freedom.

Message from Budapest
Sunday afternoon Hungarian students and their Ukrainian and Russian friends expressed their solidarity with Ukrainian protestors. The open letter of Yuri Andrukhovych was read out.

 

Message from US
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Friday, US Secretary of State John Kerry told “We will stand with the people of Ukraine,” ....

Mesterházy for president - of Hungary

This is not a big surprise, but now officially Attila Mesterhazy is the candidate of the left for president of Hungary .

Today, on 25 January 2014, the Hungarian Socialist Party - called MSZP - helds its congress in Budapest Sportaréna . As leader of the opposition he is followed by

Gordon Bajnai, leader of the alliance Együtt-PM,

Ferenc Gyurcsány, leader of the Democratic Coalition , DK,

Gábor Fodor president of The Hungarian Liberal Party (Magyar Liberális Párt) and

Tímea Szabó, co-president the new green party, Párbeszéd Magyarországért ,

in that order, that was not very easily made.

The spotlight due to the first 5 places on the common list of the opposition of the former left wing politicians was not quite a big surprise, but a rather predictable event. as they all pronounced their speeches on the same stage on the 23rd, October in front of the Budapest Technical University - an emblematic place of the 56 hungarian revolution. However at that very moment the now elected candidate for president could not add much, as his words were cut by former prime minister, Gyurcsány supporters.

source: MTI, Hungarian news agency.

Teacher's career path became secure and predictable .. or not?

As a sum up of the first semester, Secretary of State for Public Education, Mme Rózsa Hoffmann, told to the press that teacher's career path became secure and predictable and interest in such a carrier has increased.  

The first steps that will permit to rebuild the respect for teachers in Hungarian society, providing a salary that rewards their responsibilities, have been take according to Mme Hoffmann. She recalled that, as a first step, 80% of teachers received a 40 to 80 thousand HUF increase of their salary, then a new increase by 8-10 thousand HUF followed, and that a granted increase will follow yearly till 2017.

Half an hour before it starts, 1133 people joined the protest with books and warm tea, on facebook.

They protest, among other, against

• Obligatory membership in the National Department of Teachers.
• The unreasonable teacher 's career path model
• The centralized national education plan with low variety of school books.

source: MTI, Hungarian news agency.

Reconciliation fails in Kiev - 24 January 2014.

An officer of the special police forces began conversation with demonstrators standing next to them Friday afternoon, on Hrusevskii street, where the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament building is situated, - according to local press information based on an activist’s recital.

The activist, who was rushing into the building of The House of Trade Unions, residence of the opposition headquarters, hunting for a megaphone in order to be able to keep up the conversation with the officer, told: ‘The special forces told us to go home now and then participate on the elections. We answered them that elections will be rigged, we have no way out and nowhere to go. Then the police officer replied that they were human too and we were human too, so we were brothers and that they had also a family at home and they wanted to go home too.’ The activist added that the moment might come for a reconciliation with the police.
After nearly a whole day of ceasefire on Kiev streets, and an apparently easing tensions during the negotiation between opposition leaders and the government, demonstrators and government forces are back in the fight in Kiev. Police uses light and sound grenades against people and they throw back Molotov cocktails on police and burning tires to let the smoke hide them.
Moreover, opposition leaders are not anymore satisfied with changing government, they call the president to dismiss.
Former world heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, now leader of the opposition Udar Party, who returned to Ukraine as american citizen, shared with the press that in his opinion the current scenario is now following a logical order from a foreign source, however he did not mention where from.
‘Our calls have not been heard, and the agreements for truces are violated. Pavers and Molotov cocktails were again hurled at police officers who do not resort to using force, because negotiations between the government and the opposition are continuing, and a home was set on fire,’ said Ukrainian Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko in a statement on the Ukrainian Interior Ministry's website.

‘The Ukrainian people, without exaggeration, now defend the European values of a free and just society with their own blood.’

We have to prepare ourselves for the next revolution - concluded, two years ago in an interview, Yuri Andrukhovych, Ukraine’s most widely read con­tem­po­rary authors, well-known for his engagement in pro-Ukrainian and pro-European activism, replying to a question on the results of the last elections in 2010. ‘The unfreedom is back. Some people at such a historic moment need to listen to the poets – what will they say.’ - he told in the interview.

Now, we can probably soon read him in different languages of the world as he speaks to all, who ask him news from Ukraine, in one open letter shared with the wildest possible public, adding that, with this act, he is ‘subject to several new criminal code articles for “defamation,” “inflaming tensions” in Ukraine, where ‘everything that is not expressly permitted by the powers is forbidden’.

He defends the protesters of the accusation of being extremist and puts this label on the Government.

Hungarian Students Serve a Cup of Warm Tea for Free Education

Half an hour before it starts, 1133 people joined the protest with books and warm tea, on facebook.

The Hungarian public education system has by now shed most of its inherited problems, said the Minister of State for Public Education Rózsa Hoffmann on the second day of the 14th Educatio International Education Fair, publish the government website. Organizers of the protest FOR FREE EDUCATION do not agree. They expect joiners to bring their old schoolbooks too.

As cold has just surprised Hungary, they keep calling for participation adding that warm tea will be served.
See their call below:

On  25 January 2014 at 3:00 pm we protest against the restriction of freedom in education by the premature and incomprehensible - so called - “reforms” in education that we consider dangerous in many ways.

THEY WERE CREATED WITHOUT THE INVOLVEMENT OF PROFESSIONALS IN THE EDUCATION

Delay in school book supply

Dysfunctions of radically centralized national education

Experienced employees in public education sector lost their job

Unjustified increase of workload that risks to damage quality of teaching

Obligatory membership in the National Department of Teachers.

The unreasonable teacher 's career path model

CENTRALISED national education plan with low variety of school books

Withdrawal of funds from education .

Compulsory education age limit reduction.

Obligatory religion and ethic courses.

5 hours physical education per week without adequate infrastructure .

We have invited the responsible leaders in education and related organization, now it's your turn. We ask to invite all your friends, as results can only be achieved through large-scale collaboration. Here's the time and place to be if you want a FREE EDUCATION !
See you on January 25 , at Szabadság tér (the name translated into English is Freedom Square)

We demand that :

1 ) Real and public professional consultation !

2 ) Only pre-developed and established reforms enter into it!

3 ) Do not force / ram students to adopt a mindset accepted by / specific of only a part of the society.

4 ) No more withdrawal of funds from education !

5 ) Ensure public education based on freedom of speech and freedom of expression !

6 ) Liberalization of the school book market!

path of the march : Szabadság Square - Sas Street - Szent István square - Bajcsy- Zsilinszky road - Alkotmány Street - Nagy Ignác Street - Szalay Street

Joining organizations (continually updated list on facebook) :

Association for the Democratic Education and Learning
Student Network -HaHa
Network for Free Education - HAT
Uninvited Network - Hi-Ha
Secondary Schools Students Network -KiHA
OktpolCafé
History Teachers Society


Minister of Human Resources, Zoltán Balog, State Secretary of Public Education, Dr. Rózsa Hoffmann, and Assistant State Secretary Public Education, Imre Sipos, were all invited in order to protect their position within the framework of an open debate.

The protest march path :
3:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. : Rally
15:30 - : Talks at Szabadság Square
15:45 ( approx): march to Szent István Square
16:00 : Speeches at St. Stephen's Square, then marching to Arany János Street
16:45 : Speeches Arany Janos Street, then marching to Szalay Street
17:15 ( approx): Check in at Szalay Street, speeches.

watch their call

Should I stay or should I ‘stay’ ?

Right for free and secure movement of people in EU and clarifications by Lászlo Andor, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion.

EC clarifies which Member State is responsible for the provision of social security benefits to EU citizens moving between Member States. 

Under EU law there can be only one habitual place of residence and so only one Member State responsible for paying residence-based social security benefits. Employees and the self-employed qualify for social security in the country where they work and non-active people (e.g. pensioners, students) qualify in the Member State where they are ‘habitually resident’., - writes the European Commision website in its publication of 13th January. ‘There are clear safeguards in EU law to prevent people from abusing social welfare systems of other EU countries. This guide will make it easier for Member States authorities to apply the ‘Habitual Residence’ safeguards in practice. The handbook is part of the Commission's ongoing actions to facilitate the free movement of people throughout the EU.’ said László Andor, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion. According to the European Commission website the guide, drafted in cooperation with Member States, clarifies in around 50 pages the separate concepts of ‘habitual residence’ and ‘temporary residence’ or ‘stay’.

The guide recalls the specific criteria to be taken into account to determine a person's place of 'habitual residence' such as:

• family status and family ties
• duration and continuity of presence in the Member State concerned
• employment situation (in particular the place where such activity is habitually pursued, the stability of the activity, and duration of the work contract)
• exercise of a non-remunerated activity
• in the case of students, the source of their income
• how permanent a person's housing situation is
• the Member State where the person pays taxes
• reasons for the move
• the person's intentions based on all the circumstances and supported by factual evidence.

Other facts may also be taken into account if relevant.

source: http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/andor and MTI, Hungarian news agency