Hungarian far right protesters clash with police

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungarian police fired tear gas and clashed with more than a thousand anti-government protesters who attacked riot police with petrol bombs and cobblestones in Budapest on Saturday.

Protesters from the far-right gathered around a downtown monument to the Soviet Red Army, attacked police who guarded the memorial and chanted anti-government and anti-Semitic slogans.

Far-right protests have become frequent since 2006, when Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany admitted in a leaked speech that he lied about the state of the economy to win re-election. His remarks were followed by Hungary's worst violence in decades.

On Saturday, police pushed hundreds of protesters, some of whom wore swastikas, through downtown streets, continuously firing tear gas.

The clashes came just hours after several liberal groups, including the Democratic Charta, founded in part by the Socialist prime minister, and a Roma organization gathered in Budapest to protest against far right organizations which they said were becoming increasingly powerful and menacing.

Gyurcsany, one of Hungary's most disliked politicians, has struggled to amass popular support after his government enacted hefty tax and price hikes in 2006 to reduce the biggest budget deficit in the 27-nation European Union.

(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi)