Blaming the Blind Dog: Hungarian Politician’s Domestic Violence Case · Global Voices
Marietta Le

Hungarian netizens are furious over a governing Fidesz party politician's alleged involvement in a domestic violence case. József Balogh, who is reported to have beaten his partner so badly she had to be treated at a hospital, stated that she had been drunk and got hurt because she tripped over the family's blind dog. According to Origo.hu news site [hu], however, the woman said the politician had hit her.
FN24.hu news site conducted an interview [hu] with Mr. Balogh after the case came to light. Here is what Mr. Balogh had to say about it:
Is Terike, who is being treated at a hospital in Kecskemét [city] with a skull fracture, your partner?
Yes, she is. So it was, like, we arrived home on Sunday at five in the morning from the feast, Terike grabbed a bowl of meat, which we brought home to taste, from the trunk, and started carrying it into the house. But we have a Komondor dog weighing 80 kilograms, he is blind and was scared of something, so he ran ahead, and pushed Terike, who fell and hit her head.
Komondor is a Hungarian breed of sheepdogs, well-known for the special long and corded white coat. The suspicious story of the blind Komondor started a series of memes featuring the dog or a woman falling in a strange way. FN.24 posted a collection of these memes [hu], while the mock blog Hírcsárda started a Facebook campaign [hu] for the blind dog.
Hírcsárda blog shared this picture on Facebook with this caption: “One million likes and I will see again.”
A meme from m00kid.tumblr.com.
A group of citizens organized a rally against domestic violence on May 1, titled ‘Walking the dog together – the Komondor is innocent’ [hu].
After the recent discussions on domestic violence in Hungary, this case has brought up the sensitive issue again. According to the account of Mr. Balogh's ex-wife [hu], the man had subjected her to domestic violence during the 25 years of their marriage.
Rosa_parks on Kettős Mérce blog [hu] called for the government to finally take a step, since the issue of domestic violence has to be tackled in this Eastern European country:
We are still living in a subservient, submissive, sneaking country where [one has to be brave enough] to report a family member for domestic violence. The uncertain legal background is only partially the reason for the low number of police investigations – fear is much more common. The absolutely legitimate and intelligible fear. Every sensitive person's heart goes out [to the victims of those cases], because domestic violence is present in almost every family.