Hungary

2014

  
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Brussels last year. Hungary and its media law have come under scrutiny in the EU. (Reuters/Yves Herman)

Orbán walks fine line in Brussels with Hungary’s media law

“With the Islamic state offensive, the Ebola epidemic and Ukraine, Hungary is not on anyone’s mind in Europe,” mused one of our interlocutors during the Committee to Protect Journalists’ fact-finding mission in Budapest in October. “Viktor Orbán has really nothing to fear from Brussels.”

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Tamás Bodoky, editor-in-chief of Atlatszo, which advocates for information access. (AFP/Peter Kohalmi)

In Hungary, an independent website defies censorship and pressure

A delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists, led by board member Kati Marton, traveled to Hungary in October on CPJ’s first fact-finding and advocacy mission to an EU member state. We went there in response to concerning reports of deteriorating conditions for the press, and met dozens of journalists, media lawyers, managers, rights defenders,…

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People protesting in Budapest about a new Internet tax on data use hold up their smartphones. (Reuters/Laszlo Balogh)

Mission Journal: Creeping authoritarianism in Hungary

On the Buda side of the River Danube stands the glass and steel headquarters of the thriving German-owned entertainment channel RTL. On the Pest side of the Hungarian capital, tucked in a corner of a converted department store, lies the cramped office of struggling online news outlet Atlatszo.

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Amid government crackdown, Hungary’s journalists look for new ways to work

“They raided our offices as if we were mobsters. The irony of the situation is that the Hungarian police rarely raid mobsters with such force,” said an employee at one of two NGOs whose Budapest offices were stormed by about 20 officers of the Central Investigations Office–Hungary’s version of the FBI–on September 8.

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Viktor Orban was re-elected Hungary's prime minister by Parliament in May. (Reuters/Bernadett Szabo)

Hungary’s independent media struggle against economic pressure, intimidation

“This is a new wave of clampdowns by the government–they want to have another four-year term with even less critical media than before,” said Szabolcs, a 21-year-old economics student, one of thousands of people who marched in the streets of Budapest in June, chanting “Free Country, Free Press!” The demonstrations were in reaction to several…

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EU underscores support of free expression, but slights access to information

A new document on freedom of expression and opinion, adopted May 12 by the 28 foreign ministers of the European Union, presses nearly all the right buttons. Drawing its inspiration from international human rights norms as well as from the EU’s treaties and its charter of fundamental rights, the document reaffirms the role of freedom…

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Hello, I’m Robert Capa, may I take a picture?

How would Robert Capa and Joe Pulitzer have reacted to the law that came into force on March 15 in their country of birth, Hungary? Let us guess that they would have been stunned. A provision in the new Hungarian civil code forbids taking pictures without the permission of everyone in the photograph.

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2014