Lefitst opposition parties stage demonstration in support of press freedom

Budapest, October 16 (MTI) – The opposition LMP, Együtt, and Dialogue for Hungary (PM) parties staged a demonstration in Budapest on Sunday to protest against the recent closure of the daily Népszabadság.

Miklós Hargitai, a journalist with the defunct Népszabadság newspaper, said the paper’s owner had failed to give an explanation for its closure and had not informed the managing director of the impending decision. He noted the paper had written about cases of corruption, and he insisted that governing politicians had not tolerated this. He added that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had not given an interview to Népszabadság, the biggest circulation daily, in a decade. The paper’s closure, he insisted, had been an act of political revenge.

Benedek Jávor, PM’s MEP, said the government wanted to silence civil organisations and Hungary’s independent media, and claimed that it was building a “virtual reality” of its own built on lies. Referring to articles written about sleaze, he singled out the public prosecutor, the national election commission and the constitutional court, saying: “Corruption in Hungary is not a regrettable by-product of government but of the system” of Hungary’s institutions.

LMP co-leader Ákos Hadházy said corruption was “society’s cancer” and warned that “the patient is close to death”. Legislation needs to be enacted to guarantee the transparency and accountability of politicians, he added.

Péter Juhász, Együtt’s deputy leader, said Orbán had entered into a spiral of lies and would have to face reality. He called on opposition supporters to go out in force to events in which the prime minister takes part and boo him.

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Gergely Gulyás, the ruling Fidesz party’s deputy leader, earlier told a news conference that compared with numerous western European countries, Hungary has far greater press diversity and a broader mass media. He said it was unclear who was behind the demonstration of civil organisations and opposition parties on Sunday afternoon in support of press freedom.

Referring to left-leaning Népszabadság newspaper, he said that based on available information it is still thought that the decision to suspend it had been motivated by business considerations and the owners had made it clear that the paper had lost several billion forints. “In this respect, the government has nothing to do with the matter,” he said.

Gulyás insisted that in the wake of Népszabadság’s closure there would be a balanced market of two papers seen as opposition sympathisers and two which are pro-government. “There’s good reason to believe that the former has a larger distribution,” he said.

It is also plain that one of the commercial terrestrial television stations puts out “opinions strongly critical of the government, and it is probably the case that the smaller commercial broadcasters with such views have a larger audience,” the Fidesz politician said.