Orban's Orban Law Establishes “Police Information State” in Hungary: RSF

File Photo of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) fears the government’s complete grip on the national media and calls on the European institutions to act urgently to prevent the abolition of press freedom and, with it, democracy in Hungary.

After a new smear campaign against the independent media that he accuses of spreading disinformation about the pandemic, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has passed a law called “coronavirus”, which allows him to legislate by ordinances as part of an indefinite state of emergency. In particular, it provides for penalties of up to five years in prison for disseminating false information.

Justice will have the last word on possible sanctions, say the most accommodating towards Orban. In reality, the executive power may, at first, arbitrarily decide whether such information is true or false. Thus the law allows the government to exercise direct control over newsrooms that do not provide information in the desired direction. Consequently, the new Hungarian law threatens to dismantle the independent media space in the country, already very weak, and to institute a strict regime of censorship under the pretext of the fight against the pandemic.

However, it was precisely the government and the media close to the government that first underestimated the danger, then accused the migrants of having imported the virus into Hungary. The independent media were more responsible in their coverage of the epidemic, but when they highlighted the government’s mistakes in handling the crisis, they were the victims of a wave of hatred.

The independent sites Index.hu and 24.hu have been accused by a site close to the government and the state media of disseminating false information about the pandemic. During a broadcast by the commercial television channel HírTV , one speaker protested against “certain opposition channels which do not defend the Hungarian nation” and these “collaborators of the coronavirus”, before another suggested ” the “arrest” of their journalists . Legally, their wish can now be granted.

This Orwellian law installs a real police information state in the heart of Europe ,” says Pavol Szalai, head of the European Union and Balkans office of Reporters Without Borders (RSF). All European institutions must mobilize to preserve what remains of press freedom in Hungary. “

Hungarian law clearly goes against the European values enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the fundamental rights guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights. The institutions of the European Union must use all the tools at their disposal, in particular the procedure of Article 7 of the TEU, to prevent the Hungarian government from switching to an anti-democratic regime announcing the end of press freedom. The Council of Europe, for its part, should initiate a dialogue with Budapest in order to obtain the repeal of the law. These requests have been specified in open letters published by organizations defending press freedom, co-signed by RSF and addressed to EU leaders .and the Council of Europe.

Hungary is 87th in the 2019 World Press Freedom Index , down 14 places from 2018.