Crisis builds around Hungary’s president after she issued a pardon in a child sexual abuse case

By JUSTIN SPIKE
Associated Press

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Calls for Hungary’s conservative president to resign grew on Friday amid outrage over her pardoning of a person convicted of covering up a child sexual abuse case. The decision has unleashed an unprecedented political scandal for the country’s long-serving nationalist government. Katalin Novák, the first female president in Hungary’s history, sparked indignation after it was revealed that she issued a presidential pardon last April to a man convicted of hiding a string of child sexual abuses in a state-run children’s home. Hungary’s opposition parties have called for her ouster and initiated an ethics proceeding against her in parliament. One of the sex abuse survivors has publicly expressed dismay over the pardon and called on Novák to provide an explanation.