Hungary’s Parliament Approves Sweden's NATO Accession

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban addresses lawmakers before the vote on Monday. (AP)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban addresses lawmakers before the vote on Monday. (AP)
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Hungary’s Parliament Approves Sweden's NATO Accession

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban addresses lawmakers before the vote on Monday. (AP)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban addresses lawmakers before the vote on Monday. (AP)

Hungary’s parliament approved on Monday Sweden’s NATO membership bid, removing the last hurdle for the military alliance’s expansion driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In Hungary's parliament on Monday, 188 voted in favor and six against, with five abstaining.

Sweden welcomed the move, saying: “Today is a historic day.”

The vote on Monday removed the final membership hurdle for Sweden’s bid to join the alliance following lengthy delays from rightwing nationalist Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and negotiations with Türkiye, which had approved the Scandinavian country's integration into NATO last month.

Addressing lawmakers before the vote on Monday, Orban welcomed the recent visit of his Swedish counterpart Ulf Kristersson to Budapest.

“Sweden’s entry into NATO will strengthen Hungary’s security,” he said, calling Kristersson’s visit an essential step toward building “a fair and respectful relationship between the two countries.”

Orban had repeatedly said he supported Swedish membership in principle, however, he kept prolonging the process, asking Stockholm to stop “vilifying” the Hungarian government.

Relations between both countries improved in recent weeks, particularly after Kristersson’s visit on Friday when the Hungarian leader announced that the two officials had clarified their mutual good intentions.

Hungary also signed a deal to acquire four Swedish-made fighter jets, expanding its fleet of 14 Jas-39 Gripen fighters.

32nd member

The protocols for approving Sweden's entry into NATO, and which requires unanimous support among all 31 members, was on hold since May 2022.

Sweden, along with neighboring Finland, applied to join the alliance just a few months after the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

By announcing plans to join NATO, the two countries undid decades of military neutrality that lasted through two world wars and the simmering conflict of the Cold War.

For months, Hungary’s nationalist government had delayed holding a vote on Sweden’s membership, each time with a different excuse.

In Hungary’s delay, some experts saw a strategy to wring concessions from Brussels to unlock billions of euros in frozen funds.

Others argued it underlined Orban’s close ties with the presidents of Russia and Türkiye.

For Mate Szalai, an analyst at Venice’s Ca’ Foscari University, Orban was simply playing to his domestic audience.

“Orban wanted to go as far as he could without causing serious problems to the trans-Atlantic community while proving that Hungary is a power to be reckoned with,” he told AFP.

Many of his acts are intended to provoke Europe, Szalai added.



Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.

All three were patients at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

"They took them from us," Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky told AFP. "The men were from the Detective Branch."

She added that she had not wanted to discharge the student leaders but police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

Islam's elder sister Fatema Tasnim told AFP from the hospital that six plainclothes detectives had taken all three men.

The trio's student group had suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they had wanted the reform of government job quotas but not "at the expense of so much blood".

The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location.

Islam added that he had come to his senses the following morning on a roadside in Dhaka.

Mahmud earlier told AFP that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

- Garment tycoon arrested -

Police told AFP on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

On Friday police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh's biggest garment factory enterprises.

His Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people according to its website, and its annual turnover was estimated at $400 million by the Daily Star newspaper last year.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the "anarchy, arson and vandalism" of last week.

Bangladesh makes around $50 billion in annual export earnings from the textile trade, which services leading global brands including H&M, Gap and others.

Student protests began this month after the reintroduction in June of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

- 'Call to the nation' -

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters, on Friday visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

"Find those who were involved in this," she said, according to state news agency BSS.

"Cooperate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation."