1987. február (7-13. szám) / HU_BFL_XIV_47_2
I Ílíbú4:^^h Oi 24/D tittle Rü»sell Street, LONDON, WC.i ■ Tel . O-t-WO zi 26 • G. Krcssi 12/1987 /E/ 23rd February, 1937 Statement of a oonscientious ob.jector In Hungary it has been a well-established routine practice to call up, fór military service, those young mén whowere considered to be troble- makers. Among others, members of the avant-garde art group IECOEWU, popsong singers and even a young gipsy poet have been called up in the last years. Zsolt Keszthelyi /aged 23/, Budapest, was a university student till last year, he has belonged to an unofficial youth circle, called VOX HUMANA and he has been one of the editors of illegal samizdat Journal ÉGTÁJAK KÖZÖTT /Between the Points of the Compass/. The last issue of this Journal published the names of those writers who had been elected intő. the new leadership of the Hungárián Writers* Union and alsó a list of those who were rejected. On the 30th of January there was a Sharp attack against ÉGTÁJAK KÖZÖTT in Hungárián official literary weekly ÉLET ES IRODALOM /Life and Literature/. Then, on the 4th of February police raided the fiat of Keszthelyi /and the fiat of József Talata, another editor of ÉGTÁJAK KÖZÖTT/, a number of samizdat publications were confiscated, included 350 copies of a new illegal Journal. Bubsequently Keszthelyi was called up fór military service. In the last years there have been thousands of oonscientious objectors in Hungary, bút Keszthelyi is the first known person whose motives are nőt religious ones. He is nőt inclined, he says, to pút his trust in an army which is nőt placed under the control of a freely elected government. The following statement was written by Zsolt Keszthelyi today. To the Vienna Gonference of European States Dealing with Bafety and Mutual Co-Operation I turn to the non-Warsaw-Pact delegates of the Conference as the robbed editor of an independent Hungárián newspaper and as a oonscientious objector. I got called up fór the 25th of this month, and on the 18th I mailed a letter to the military authorities containing my soldier’s book and a declaration of my refusal in which I ascertain my democratic political conviction. I think that the fate of the thousands of Hungárián oonscientious objectors is a good reason fór that part of the Conference which is representing the free-world public opinion to pay reál attention to these cases. A believer in the spirit of the true constitution Budapest, 23rd February 1987. Zsolt Keszthelyi Oonscientious objectors in recent years have been sentenced to 2 or 3 years of imprisonment in Hungary.---------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------——■-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1 3
