Hungary has opened the archives of the communist secret police, containing thousands of reports — Reuters

Hungary has made tens of thousands of documents from the communist secret police publicly available; these documents contain information about informants who were involved in surveilling citizens.

The archival materials were published online more than 36 years after the fall of the communist regime. This move fulfills a promise made by Prime Minister Péter Magyar, who advocated for the declassification of the documents to help Hungarians better understand their country’s totalitarian past.

Currently, about 60,000 names have been made public, and new documents will be added to the database by February 2027. At the same time, this archive is incomplete: a significant portion of the materials was destroyed during the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising and in 1988–1989.

“I urge everyone to approach this long-overdue publication of documents with dignity and humanity… After all, many families will have to deal with difficult information that often concerns their deceased relatives… It is impossible to process trauma without open discussion and a search for answers to questions,” stated Péter Magyar.

Although the communist regime in Hungary fell back in 1989, the full opening of the archives was delayed due to a lack of decisive political will on the part of successive governments.

Until now, aside from researchers, ordinary citizens could only access documents concerning themselves or their close relatives. From now on, anyone can search the online database for the names of individuals associated with the former state security agencies.

 

Recently, former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán revealed that while serving in the military, the communist secret police tried to recruit him as an informant. He refused, after which he himself became the subject of close surveillance by state security agencies.

Source: Reuters.

Péter Magyar found documents that the Orbán government had not had time to destroy.

Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar announced the end of the state of emergency previously imposed by Viktor Orbán’s government.

Hungary has stated that it will stop exerting pressure within the EU – Bloomberg.

As a reminder, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that Hungary had returned to Ukraine the funds and assets of Oschadbank that had been seized by Hungarian intelligence services in March of this year.