For over a decade, Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán has been waging a war against the country’s free press and he is succeeding. Most of Hungary’s 10-million people do not speak another language. Orbán’s fake-news factories, trolls and misleading “political analysts” dominate the media and the result is that today the Hungarian public seems to be one of the most […]
Hungary’s authoritarian regime is showing its true intentions. The government has declared zero tolerance against independent media outlets voicing criticism of government policies. In 2016 Orbán engineered the shutdown Hungary’s largest broadsheet newspaper, Népszabadság. The official story was “declining sales” and the ruling Fidesz party beamed that the shutdown was “a rational economic decision.” Népszabadság was not in immediate financial danger and got […]
The Hungarian Parliament recently passed the Enabling Act to extend the Prime Minister’s power. Viktor Orbán is using the coronavirus crisis to grab nearly unlimited power for an indefinite period. The Enabling Act brings up painful memories in Germany. In 1933 the German Reichstag (Diet) passed a similar Enabling Act (Ermächtigungsgesetz) which enabled Hitler’s government to issue decrees independently of the […]
