(4 Nov 2022)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Budapest – 4 November 2022
1. Various of demonstrators in front of headquarters of Hungary's public media company
2. SOUNDBITE (Hungarian) Akos Hadhazy, independent opposition lawmaker:
"Between 2018 and 2022, in four years, an opposition leader got access to a total of five minutes live broadcast time in this building. In contrast, the prime minister gets an hour every week to say what he wants."
3. Various of demonstrators
4. SOUNDBITE (Hungarian) Akos Hadhazy, independent opposition lawmaker:
"As long as this propaganda machine is available to the government, it can do virtually anything. And they can do it because this propaganda machine serves only them."
5. Pan of protesters
6. Wide of protesters listing to speaker on stage
7. Mid of people clapping
8. SOUNDBITE (Hungarian) Gyorgy Laszlo, demonstrator:
"Hungarian brains have been brainwashed for ten years, and successfully so. They have managed to make the Hungarian people believe the opposite of the truth."
9. Pan to police car blocking the road leading to the headquarters of Hungary's public media company
10. Wide of people around the entrance area of the public media company
11. SOUNDBITE (Hungarian) Sandor Godan, demonstrator:
"It's not just physically worth getting into this building, it's a secondary thing. The most important thing is to get the real news in there and report the reality. That would be our goal."
12. Wide of protesters
STORYLINE:
Around 1,500 demonstrators gathered at the headquarters of Hungary's public media company Friday to protest what they say is biased news coverage and state-sponsored propaganda that favours the country's populist government.
Demonstrators called for the replacement of the director of public media corporation MTVA, and for 'due coverage' of a recent wave of major protests and strikes by Hungarian teachers and students.
The actions demanding better pay and working conditions for educators are largely ignored by the public media despite some protests drawing tens of thousands of people.
The protest Friday, dubbed a "blockade of the factory of lies," was called by independent opposition lawmaker Akos Hadhazy, a former member of the ruling Fidesz party who is known as an anti-corruption crusader.
Speaking at the protest Friday, Hadhazy said Hungary's government had created a "propaganda machine" which has refused to provide opposition voices airtime while openly advocating the policies of the governing party.
"As long as this propaganda machine is available to the government, it can do virtually anything," Hadhazy said.
Hungary's government, under the leadership of nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban since 2010, has frequently been accused of eroding press freedom and rolling back democratic checks and balances in the country.
International media watchdog Reporters Without Borders added Orban to its list of "press freedom predators" last year. But he has pointed to the existence of several online news outlets and commercial television stations that are critical of his government as proof that the media in Hungary are "freer and more diverse" than in Western Europe.
In September, the European Union's legislature declared that Hungary had become "a hybrid regime of electoral autocracy" under Orban's leadership, and that its undermining of the bloc's democratic values had taken Hungary out of the community of democracies. Orban's government faces financial penalties from the EU in the billions of dollars over concerns over corruption and rule-of-law violations.
Clients are reminded:
Find out more about AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
Twitter: [ Ссылка ]
Facebook: [ Ссылка ]
Instagram: [ Ссылка ]
You can license this story through AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
