Hungary has released communist-era secret police archives, revealing the identities of up to 60,000 former agents. Prime Minister Peter Magyar ended a decades-long stall on disclosure with a bill granting unrestricted public access to the records. The released documents include registration sheets, recruitment registers, and databases of code names, searchable online by name, birth date, or code name.
While the registries feature politicians, clergy, and TV personalities, many of the informants were ordinary citizens who did not make their mark on national public life. To help families cope with the difficult revelations, the government has set up hotlines for emotional support and counseling. During the communist era between 1949 and 1989, the secret police employed an estimated 150,000 agents to monitor public sentiment, but only about one-third of their names were previously known.
A second batch of files detailing about 9,000 informants will be released in February. Magyar urged the public to treat the disclosure with dignity and humanity, calling it a key promise of the 1990 regime change finally fulfilled after 36 years.
Source: Hacker News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing