The details are a closely guarded secret, but the actions are likely to be designed to attract widespread attention. They have drawn inspiration from movements in the region and beyond: In early September, Srđa Popović, the leader of the Otpor student movement that helped depose Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević, was their guest in Budapest. And the movement’s Facebook page features a photo of Martin Luther King Jr. [...]
The Hungarian government, which is in the midst of a campaign against Hungarian-American financier George Soros, has said that opposition activists are planning public order disruptions during what it predicted would be a “hot autumn,” and that outside forces are attempting to interfere in internal politics. [...]
Activists, meanwhile, like to point out that Orbán himself spoke of civil disobedience when he was in opposition. In 2007, Fidesz dismantled a police cordon near the Hungarian parliament, with Orbán’s website declaring that “Fidesz members of both the Hungarian and the European Parliament resorted to civil disobedience.” [...]
The movement’s founder and leader, 31-year old Márton Gulyás, is a household name in the capital. To his mostly young, left-wing followers he is an icon of resistance. Known to his supporters as Marci, his arrest this spring for allegedly breaching the peace and committing acts of vandalism — he threw paint at the presidential palace — sparked a protest with hundreds chanting “Marci out, Orbán in” outside a building where he was believed to be held.
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