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Govt official believes these were the biggest fake news about Hungary in 2020
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Zoltán Kovács, serving as Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Relations of the Ministry of Administration and Justice, collected some news about Hungary from 2020 he regards to be fake. Below you can read the unchanged article originally published on abouthungary.hu.
We may remember 2020 as the annus horribilis for all its misfortune and rightly so. It was also a year of horrible media coverage of Hungary, some of the most ridiculous we have seen yet from the mainstream press. Here is a list that I narrowed to just three storylines – no small task, believe me – where reporters and media outlets with an agenda got their facts completely wrong or purposefully bent the truth.
This year, much like the fake news coverage I highlighted last year, the international media really outdid themselves. The competition was stiff, so I collected them according to story lines. Though they cover different topics, they all have much in common: bias, double standards, ungrounded criticism and contempt.
Sometimes, they’re funny. Other times, not so much. Let’s jump right in.
1. Orbán will abuse the coronavirus crisis to seize “dictatorial powers”
On March 11, one week after Hungary reported its first, confirmed case of coronavirus, the government ordered a state of emergency. On March 30, Hungary’s National Assembly – acting upon the government’s initiative – passed the so-called Coronavirus Protection Act, which gave the government broad powers to protect the lives of our people and the economy – much like measures in other countries.
- Government to buy EUR 2.3m worth building in Budapest for a Chinese university
- Government: Hungarian health care proved world-class in pandemic
- Hungary expects more respect from Croatian politicians spreading fake news, says ministry
Never missing an opportunity to go after a conservative government, it didn’t take long for mainstream media outlets to sound the alarm. Writing for The Independent, liberal MEP and long-time Orbán critic Guy Verhofstadt began talking about an “erosion of [Hungarian] democracy” that “could destroy the [EU] bloc from within.” Writing cowardly under the pseudonym “Beda Magyar,” a former Central European University (CEU) professor cried in Die Zeit that PM Orbán would be keeping “Hungarians hostage” as he lets them “suffer and die.”
Meanwhile, the editorial board over at The Guardian wasn’t going to miss out on the action. They published an editorial in which they claimed that PM Orbán would “rule by decree, alone and unchallenged,” as he gained “dictatorial powers” for an “indefinite period” of “one-man rule.” Thank you, Guardian editors.
In mid-April, a certain Pavol Szalai from the Soros-funded Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called for a pan-European mobilization to “preserve what’s left of press freedom in Hungary,” as Prime Minister Orbán’s “Orwellian law” introduces a “full-blown information police state in the heart of Europe.” That one had me ROTFL.
Petri Tuomi-Nikula, a former Finnish ambassador to Hungary, was the first of a several officials, including EPP President Donald Tusk, who drew allusions to Hitler. Oh, the drama!
It was all a gross distortion, of course. Even MEP Anna Dónath, from the liberal opposition Momentum party, admitted later that their leaders “knew very well that the Hungarian government didn’t receive full powers, or anything of the sort.” Nevertheless, she said that by “joining others in crying ‘Dictatorship!’, we contributed to spread that fake news all around Europe.” And played the media for suckers.
We know today that the Coronavirus Protection Act definitely did not push Hungary into “authoritarian disarray.” It served the country well. It enabled the government to take swift action, closing borders, enacting movement restrictions, slowing the spread of the disease, and procuring the necessary equipment for our national healthcare system and healthcare providers to treat all those who required care.
Despite the alarmist claims, on May 27, at the end of the first wave of the virus, the Hungarian Government handed back the extraordinary powers it had acquired under the state of emergency, making Hungary one of the first countries in Europe to do so. Some of these powers have recently been reinstated to successfully combat the second wave of the COVID-19 crisis. This time around, perhaps shamed by their exaggerations and distortions in the spring, the media has remained mostly silent.
2. “Führerdemocracy,” anti-Semitism and double standards
You thought that anti-Semitism wouldn’t make the list this year? Guess again.
Since Prime Minister Orbán’s government took power in 2010, false allegations of anti-Semitism directed at Hungary have become a persistent theme in the playbook of our left-liberal critics. It was dormant for a while, but this year it saw a comeback.
In August, Germany’s Minister of State for Europe Michael Roth said that the key reason behind launching the so-called Article 7 procedure against Hungary was, wait for it, our growing anti-Semitism. With his baseless claims and false accusations, the minister of state crossed the line.