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HUNGARIAN DEPUTY PM SUSPECTED OF PLAGIARIZING THESIS
December 7, 2012 - 20:46 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - Hungarian Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjen
plagiarized much of his sociology thesis, a university said on Friday,
Dec 7, according to Reuters.
It is the second plagiarism scandal involving Hungarian politicians
this year. In April President Pal Schmitt resigned after a university
stripped him of his sports doctorate for copying chunks of his thesis
without proper acknowledgement.
Budapest's Eotvos Lorand University, which examined Semjen's thesis
after a local media report, said the deputy premier committed a severe
ethical offence. But it ruled out any sanctions against him and he
will keep his qualification.
Semjen is the head of the Christian Democratic Peoples' Party, which
is in an alliance with Prime Minister Viktor Orban's ruling Fidesz.
The inquiry was launched after business website HVG.hu -- which
uncovered a similar controversy earlier this year that brought down
Hungary's president -- raised doubts last month about Semjen's 1992
thesis on a religious subject.
On Friday the prime minister's office said Semjen acknowledged
that the university would not initiate a procedure against him and
"considered the matter closed".
But in the statement, the government - which had previously called
the HVG.hu report a "political provocation" - did not question the
university's findings.
Katalin Tausz, dean of the Social Sciences Faculty at the university,
told a news conference that scholars examined Semjen's thesis showed
to see if there were any similarities with writings by his supervisor,
Attila Karoly Molnar.
"The conclusion is that (Semjen's thesis) contains, to a significant
degree, verbatim texts without quotation from writings by Attila Karoly
Molnar," the dean said, according to a video of the news conference
posted by news website index.hu.
December 7, 2012 - 20:46 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - Hungarian Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjen
plagiarized much of his sociology thesis, a university said on Friday,
Dec 7, according to Reuters.
It is the second plagiarism scandal involving Hungarian politicians
this year. In April President Pal Schmitt resigned after a university
stripped him of his sports doctorate for copying chunks of his thesis
without proper acknowledgement.
Budapest's Eotvos Lorand University, which examined Semjen's thesis
after a local media report, said the deputy premier committed a severe
ethical offence. But it ruled out any sanctions against him and he
will keep his qualification.
Semjen is the head of the Christian Democratic Peoples' Party, which
is in an alliance with Prime Minister Viktor Orban's ruling Fidesz.
The inquiry was launched after business website HVG.hu -- which
uncovered a similar controversy earlier this year that brought down
Hungary's president -- raised doubts last month about Semjen's 1992
thesis on a religious subject.
On Friday the prime minister's office said Semjen acknowledged
that the university would not initiate a procedure against him and
"considered the matter closed".
But in the statement, the government - which had previously called
the HVG.hu report a "political provocation" - did not question the
university's findings.
Katalin Tausz, dean of the Social Sciences Faculty at the university,
told a news conference that scholars examined Semjen's thesis showed
to see if there were any similarities with writings by his supervisor,
Attila Karoly Molnar.
"The conclusion is that (Semjen's thesis) contains, to a significant
degree, verbatim texts without quotation from writings by Attila Karoly
Molnar," the dean said, according to a video of the news conference
posted by news website index.hu.