Hungary's president quits over alleged plagiarism
By Fanny Facsar, for CNN
Hungarian President Pal Schmitt announces his resignation to the Hungarian Parliament in Budapest on April 2, 2012.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
· NEW: Pal Schmitt says he is prepared to go to court to prove he is right
· The president was stripped of his doctorate last week
· He had insisted he wouldn't quit, saying his conscience was clear
· Germany's defense minister resigned in a similar scandal last year
Budapest, Hungary (CNN) -- Hungarian President Pal Schmitt resigned Monday, days after vowing he would not quit over allegations that he plagiarized parts of his doctoral dissertation.
Protesters had called last week for him to step down over the accusation.
"In this situation, when my personal issue splits my beloved country instead of uniting it, I feel it is my duty to end my service, and to resign," he told parliament Monday.
Schmitt insisted Monday that his conscience was clear, repeating an assertion he made in an interview aired Friday on public access television station M1.
He said Monday that he was prepared to go to court to prove that he was right.
"I have written my thesis with my best knowledge I had at the time, and I never intended to plagiarize. However, I will accept the decision of the (University) Senate that has withdrawn my doctorate. But this has got nothing to do with me being a president," he said Friday.
Schmitt, a former Olympic fencing champion, wrote his dissertation in 1992 for the University of Physical Education, which is now part of Semmelweis University in Budapest.ungarian president caught plagiarizing
In January 2012, the Hungarian HVG weekly reported that a large part of Schmitt's dissertation was copied.
A university investigation also found that large parts of it were plagiarized. A committee said last week that more than 200 pages of the 215-page document showed "partial similarity" to other works or were direct translations.
The university stripped the president of his doctorate Thursday.
"Since the former candidate's doctoral dissertation is based on lengthy literal translations, it does not meet the professional and ethical criteria of the 'dissertation prepared using scientific methods' requirement for obtaining a university doctorate," the university's investigators said in a report.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban said it was up to the president to decide what to do.
"Nobody except him can decide," Orban said in a radio interview Friday.
Schmitt was elected by the parliament for a five-year term in 2010.
Germany's defense minister resigned last year in a similar scandal.
Karl-Theodor Freiherr zu Guttenberg quit all political posts in March 2011, adding that he was "taking the step that I would expect others to take."
*****************************************************
Hungary President vs Pakistani Parliamentarians
Hungarian President Pal Schmit tendered resignation on Monday 2nd April 2012 because he has been accused of plagiarism which he denied and have announced to go to a court of law to prove his innocence. It is alleged that his thesis submitted to earn Ph D degree had some pages which look like to have been copied from somewhere which of course is not allowed and accepted by any university worldwide so from that point of view he is rightly accused of plagiarism and from my point of view I should not be too interested in that conflict which would be dealt by Hungarian authorities in any case.
However, if none shows me gun, nobody hurls stones on me and no one scolds me either then I would like to draw your kind attention of all the worthy readers towards some of our own parliamentarians who had submitted their bogus educational degrees so that they become eligible to contest in our assemblies’ elections. Election Commission of Pakistan when sent all their educational degrees to the respective universities for verification and authentication it was found out that some of the degrees were fake. What does that mean? Is EC has some personal grudges against those parliamentarians whose degrees are declared as fake by EC? Are universities been wrong to declare genuine degrees as fake degrees? Had these assembly members not intentionally obtain such like bogus degrees?
If we compare the two meaning by plagiarism and fake degree one can very well realize that though both are vices but yet the former is less vice as compared to the later one. In plagiarism one is at least not only admitted as a student but also the student does put in some efforts towards his / her thesis whereas one is not to be a registered student to obtain fake degree. Secondly in case of plagiarism the person concerned must be somewhere nearer to the academic standard of the degree he / she is trying to obtain whereas in case of case fake degree the holder may not be even at the border of the degree he / she has obtained fraudulently. The two are miles apart and there is no equation or relevance between the two.
If we judiciously read the above explanation I am sure our heads will bow down in shame to see that our parliamentarians are so shameless that they not only intentionally obtained fake degrees but also submitted the same to EC and did not feel even a bit of shame while taking oath as assembly member whereas on the contra Hungary President resigned when he has been accused of partial and not whole plagiarism.
Who is a better person-Hungarian or Pakistani, better you answer it and not me?
|