Abstract
What do Heineken beer and the Helsinki Committee have in common with the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest? Each has been the object of the Hungarian government's recent ire. It tried to ban the beer on the pretext that the red star on the can was a totalitarian symbol, to restrict the workings of the international NGO, and passed a new law to force the closure of the internationally renowned private university, whose fate still hangs in balance.