Hungary's former PM Orban says he rebuffed secret police recruitment

Key Points:

• Former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban revealed that Communist secret services attempted to recruit him as an informer during his military service, but he refused and was later subjected to heavy police surveillance.
• Orban shared secret service documents from the 1980s on Facebook, highlighting that he, his wife, and opposition members were monitored with informants and listening devices installed in their homes and workplaces.
• Hungary is set to launch an online public database on Wednesday, releasing tens of thousands of Communist-era police files to allow citizens to access records of informers and collaborators from the former state security services.
• The release of these archives fulfills a pledge by current Prime Minister Peter Magyar to promote transparency and help Hungarians confront their totalitarian past, marking a significant step as previous governments lacked the political will to fully open these files.
• Between 1956 and 1989, Hungary recorded approximately 55,000 secret collaborators, and the new database will enable anyone to search these records, moving beyond the prior limitation of accessing only personal or close family files.