Iren Karman, a qualified lawyer, works as a freelance journalist and documentary film maker producing films about social problems. Ms Karman previously worked with the Hungarian Helsinki Committee dealing with the legal problems of immigrants and refugees. She has been making films sponsored by independent sources for ten years now and has focused on many issues including homelessness, organ transplants and holocaust survivors. She has been invited to film festivals in Israel, Romania and Croatia. Iren Karman is also the author of the book "Facing the Media" which she wrote after facing difficulties when trying to make a documentary about corruption in Hugary. Having been prevented from making the film, she wrote the book. As a result Iren Karman has been targeted and was assaulted in June 2007.

"Instead of an academic speech I will simply tell you my story.

Two years ago I started working with former police and customs officers accused on false charges and expelled by their corrupt superiors. Their sins were to work too well. They investigated cases which endangered the positions of Hungarian mafia groups. In my country after the collapse of the communist regime a crazy race started to become rich. This social transformation weakened the state administration and created opportunities for economic crimes. The biggest case was the so called oil bleaching. At that time, in the 1990s in Hungary, two types of diesel oil were sold at different prices. The expensive one was for car owners, the cheap, government-subsidised one was for old people to heat their homes. The cheap one was dyed red to stop it being used in cars. They removed the dye from the cheap heating oil and sold it illegally as the high priced oil for huge profits on the black market. This lasted for years. High level politicians did nothing. Money from bleached oil flowed into politics, public administration and especially into law enforcement bodies and civil associations.

When I started shooting my film about this corruption in Hungary I soon remained alone. The chief editor of the biggest political newspaper warned me to stop. My old colleagues let me down. I shot alone holding my camera without any technical assistance. I was threatened frequently. My car was robbed and some of my documents stolen. Once I received a death threat. The police didn’t help. After one year’s work I released a book about illegal oil dealing up to that time. I managed to publish some thousands of copies. It was successful. But the greatest success was staying alive. On 22nd June this year I was attacked near my home. The assailants beat me, pushed me into a car, tied me up and left me on the banks of River Danube. I had internal bleeding so I received immediate surgery and spent weeks in hospital.

You can ask why didn’t I publish my research at once to defend myself. The answer is simple. Only one tabloid would release some parts. The head of the Hungarian Journalists’ Association also confirmed the story in a TV interview after my attack. After publishing the book, some of my friends from film studios overcame their fear and helped me finish the film. Now it’s available, you can simply order the DVD via the Internet. The title is ‘Oily Relations’. This is very nice, isn’t it? Book, DVD, Internet blog. What else could I want? But in fact nothing happened. Some years ago a parliamentary committee was established to investigate the dirty oil business. But the reports to this committee were classified as top secret for eighty years. The same happened with the police and customs officials’ reports. The career of the head of the Parliamentary Oil Committee was destroyed. Now he raises pigs to pay the mortgage and doesn’t give interviews. Former high-ranking police officials who are now millionaires took legal actions against him and won. The papers which could prove his innocence are highly confidential.

After my assault the journalists got agitated and politicians started speaking out. The Prime Minister proposed to end the classification of the oil files as state secrets. What has happened? The government opened some files but deleted the important information. Most of it is still not available. Those who want to keep it secret – the police, state prosecutors, high-ranking customs offices – fight tooth and nail. In my case, first my son was investigated, then my husband. Later they started to blacken my name. Soon the investigation was against me. There were the oil millionaires of my book, film and blog. The police fixed them with a phone call. They called them asking, ‘Did you commit this?’ They only had to say no, and that’s all. Meanwhile some newspapers started a campaign against me. They declared that the trouble was my Mafia connections. A legal action was taken against me by a convicted gun-runner, now in jail. He thought my writing about his political connections hurt his reputation.

Many people ask me why I do this? I don’t really know, maybe I can’t stop halfway.

I’d like to live in an open and democratic society and believe that people’s representatives are not just political bandits and a cleptocracy. Hungary today is the country of secret files and corrupt politicians."