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Nationalists protest in Budapest | |
(about 9 hours later) | |
Thousands of people have protested against Hungary's Socialist government in the capital Budapest on the country's National Day. | |
There was tight security, amid fears of a repetition of last October's clashes that marred the 50th anniversary of the anti-Soviet uprising. | |
Despite some unruly behaviour, the protests were largely peaceful. | |
Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany was booed by a few hundred protesters, who shouted "Go, Gyurcsany, go!" | |
Later, Budapest Mayor Gabor Demszky, an ally of Mr Gyurcsany, had to be protected with an umbrella against eggs thrown by protesters during his speech. | |
Right-wing protest | |
Last October, major clashes erupted, following Mr Gyurcsany's admission that he had lied during the electoral campaign about the state of Hungary's finances. | |
Some protesters threw eggs at the mayor | |
The main conservative opposition party, Fidesz, held its own rally on Thursday afternoon, attended by tens of thousands of supporters. | |
Fidesz made clear it had nothing to do with the far-right protesters, among them the leader of the Miep party, Istvan Csurka. He welcomed British historian David Irving, who was imprisoned until recently in Austria for Holocaust denial. | |
Organisers asked participants at the Fidesz rally to carry only the official flag and not the traditional Hungarian Arpad flag, a modified version of which was used by the pro-Nazi government of 1944-1945. | |
Yet some participants still carried the Arpad flag and sang songs lamenting the demise of Greater Hungary after World War I. | |
Fidesz has been accused in the past of not dissociating itself from far-right elements. The party is in the main centre-right group in the European Union - the European Popular Party - and has vehemently denied that it harbours xenophobic or anti-Semitic views. |