Secret police files released in Hungary, 47 years after fall of communism

Hungary has opened communist-era secret police files to the public, in a controversial move the government says will help Hungarian society heal itself from the traumas of 45 years of communist rule.

Critics say it has come too late, that the files themselves are incomplete, and that the move risks sowing division and causing unnecessary anguish to family members.

The date of the opening is symbolic - on 4 November 1956 Soviet tanks rolled through Budapest and other cities, to crush Hungary's short-lived revolution.

"I ask everyone to treat this long overdue publication of documents with dignity and humanity," Prime Minister Péter Magyar told reporters at the state archives in Budapest.

"Many families will now face difficult information, often related to a deceased relative," he added. "It is impossible to process a trauma without discussion and asking questions."

Magyar defended the move, which was a central promise of his election campaign ahead of his landslide victory in April elections, as the fulfilment of a promise made by those who toppled the Communist party in 1989 in Hungary.

In the ensuing decades, conservative, Socialist-Liberal, and Fidesz-led governments have all contemplated, but ultimately refused to open the files.

Since 1998, it has been possible to apply for your own file, and for historians to research those of others. But many names were blacked out, and many files withheld by the post-communist secret services for their own use.

Kaynak: BBC News World RSS (Açık Basın / Haber Servisi)