Hungarian flag burnt

In their anger, Armenians have burnt the Hungarian flag to protest Hungary's government releasing Azerbaijani army officer Ramil Safarov Sahib back to Azerbaijan. Sahib killed an Armenian officer in Budapest back in 2004. The Hungarian government had assurances from the Azerbaijani government that Sahib would serve out the remainder of his sentence when he returned to Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani government broke their word to the Hungarian government and set him free with a full pardon. This caused a huge outrage in Armenia and Armenians are now protesting against Hungary. 

Armenia and Azerbaijan are mortal enemies and have already fought a war in the early 1990s. I've always been against burning flags or attacking people for their religious beliefs etc., but I think that the flag burning is an unnecessary overreaction. When this sort of action is done, it attacks a people and nation as a whole, not the few the protesters think are guilty. The Hungarian left-wing parties are now taking full advantage of the whole Sahib affair by unjustly attacking the Hungarian government. There was a small protest against the Hungarian government in Budapest on Tuesday by the Hungarian left and Armenian protesters.

The real bad guy in this whole affair is the Azerbaijani government, who had broke their promise to the Hungarian government by releasing Sahib. It seems that Hungary is taking the full blame even though what they did was okay by international law. Burning flags will not help the situation as it will only make things worse. We can hope that cooler heads will prevail in the coming days ahead. The Hungarian government should take some sort of action against the Azerbaijani government for their dishonesty. Hungary should tread carefully though and not get too involved in the politics of that region of the world. Hungary has its own domestic issues to deal with back home.

István