Stars may seem like a harmless symbol of Christmas goodwill -- but in eastern Europe, if they're red, they may be anything but.
Hungarian shopper Istvan Hamza made a formal complaint to police that the star decorations in a record shop in the town of Szombathely were too much like the communist red star -- banned by law as a symbol of decades of dictatorship.
As someone who has travelled extensively in communist countries, I have to agree with this one. In the heyday of the Soviet Union or the PRC, you could not go more than a few steps without seeing the things. If I was Ms. Hamza, I wouldn't want anything even vaguely resembling them around either.
# posted by John Schroeder @ 12/21/2005 05:20:00 AM
