Mass protest in Hungary over child-abuse case

Demonstrators packed the historic Heroes' Square in the capital Budapest in solidarity with abuse victims.

President Katalin Novak and two senior figures in Prime Minister Viktor Orban's ruling Fidesz party last week resigned over the controversial pardon.

Separately, a bishop who advised the right-wing PM has now also quit.

Zoltan Balog admitted he had supported Ms Novak's pardon for the deputy director of a children's home, who has been convicted of covering up sexual abuse by his boss.

The scandal has become the biggest threat to Mr Orban's conservative rule since he returned to power in 2010, says the BBC's Nick Thorpe in Budapest.

Resignations leave Hungary's Orban in biggest crisis yet

On Friday, large crowds streamed into Heroes' Square for the demonstration entitled "there are monsters out there".

Political parties were asked to stay away: this was a show of force by mostly young Hungarians in protest against the abuse and neglect of children and for social solidarity, our correspondent reports.

Mr Orban's government has made family values a core theme of its policies. He is expected to spell out the government's next moves in a state of the nation address on Saturday.

Katalin Novak stepped down last week, apologising for "a mistake" in granting the pardon.

The controversy which led to the resignations came after the names of 25 people pardoned by Ms Novak in April last year, as part of a visit to Hungary by Pope Francis, were made public by Hungarian media.

On the list of convicts was the deputy director of a children's home near Budapest, who had been jailed for three years after forcing children to retract claims of abuse against the director of the home.

The director had himself been jailed for eight years over abusing children at the government-run facility.

-bbc