Canada’s La Presse publishes feature on “Hungarian regime” and war against civil society

Canada’s largest French-language newspaper, La Presse, published a feature piece entitled “Michael Ignatieff engaged in a battle against the Hungarian regime” (Michael Ignatieff engagé dans un combat contre le Régime hongrois) and interviewed Professor András Göllner, a Hungarian Free Press contributor, as part of its story on proposed legislation aimed at shuttering Budapest’s Central European University (CEU).

Professor Göllner told La Presse: “This is a war declared against all organizations that are critical of the Orbán regime,” adding that these groups are simply “scrutinizing the activities of those in power, just like any similar organization in Canada would.” Professor Göllner, who is affiliated with Concordia University and founded the Canadian Hungarian Democratic Charter (CHDC) in 2011, told La Presse that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has had international NGOs and the CEU in his sights for quite a while, but more recently he has felt empowered by the election of Donald Trump.

For András Göllner, there is no doubt that Donald Trump supports the Hungarian leader in this matter. “There is a collusion between Trump and Orbán,” he accuses–writes Agnès Gruda of La Presse.

La Presse added that U.S. Senator Ben Cardin has spoken out against Mr. Orbán’s legislative attack on CEU. (Sen. Cardin has also spoken out before on authoritarianism in Hungary.) The French Canadian paper also highlights that the U.S. Embassy in Budapest and the State Department have all expressed concern. The publication notes that the Orbán regime is “consumed by its appetite for power to the point of wanting to stifle all free institutions.”

Here at HFP, we have been somewhat uncertain whether it is appropriate, or perhaps too shrill, to refer to the Orbán government as a regime. Increasingly, we see mainstream papers in North America opting to refer to what Mr. Orbán has built in Hungary as a regime bent on stifling all serious expressions of dissent and independent thought.

La Presse

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