Free Republic

Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar launched his party’s election campaign in Budapest on Sunday, vowing to restore Hungary’s Western orientation just eight weeks before he faces Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in a pivotal vote. Magyar, a former insider in Orbán’s nationalist Fidesz party, burst onto Hungary’s political scene in 2024 after breaking with his political community and quickly forming the center-right Tisza party. After taking around 30% of the vote in European Parliament elections in June 2024, he has grown Tisza into the most formidable political force Orbán has faced during his 16 years at Hungary’s helm. Most independent polls...

Moscow charges Jacques Tilly with “defaming Russian state organs” and threatens him with up to 10 years in prison, but Düsseldorf’s legendary satirist says he won’t be intimidated and is rolling out a new Putin wagon for Monday’s Rose Monday parade. Russia's prosecution of a German satirist fits a pattern of weaponizing its judiciary against foreign critics of Moscow's war in Ukraine, extending the Kremlin's domestic crackdown on free speech beyond its own borders. The 62-year-old sculptor, who faces Moscow's charges of "defaming Russian state bodies" and up to ten years in prison, sent all three floats through Dusseldorf's streets....