BUDAPEST — Hungary’s former Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Tuesday that Communist-era secret services attempted to recruit him as an informer during his military service, but that he refused and was later subjected to heavy surveillance.
Orban made the claim in a Facebook statement accompanied by secret service documents from 1982 and the late 1980s. He said he, his wife and fellow opposition members were kept under constant monitoring, with informants assigned to them and listening devices placed in their workplaces, homes and bedrooms.
The statement came a day before Hungary begins releasing tens of thousands of Communist-era police files through an online public database. The archive will allow the public to search lists of informers and collaborators once used by the former state security services.
Prime Minister Peter Magyar’s centre-right Tisza party, which ousted Orban in April after his 16-year rule, pledged to open the records as part of efforts to help Hungary confront its totalitarian past. Although Communist rule ended in 1989, full access to the files had been delayed by successive governments.
Previously, ordinary citizens could request only their own records or those of close relatives, while broader access was largely limited to researchers. Hungary’s records identify about 55,000 secret collaborators between 1956 and 1989.