Tag Archives: Orbán government

Orbán’s dirty little trick: Conflating pedophilia with homosexuality

Almost a year ago, it came to light that the Hungarian government had tried to bury the case of a pedophile diplomat. Hungarian authorities had been alerted that Gábor Kalota, the ambassador to Peru, was involved in an international child pornography network. Over the years, he had downloaded 19,000 apparently violent pornographic photos from the dark web, for which he paid the South Korean who ran the “service” in Bitcoin.

Kalota was immediately recalled from Lima, but the case remained one of the many secrets of the Orbán government. After the case came to light and the public learned that Kalota had received a light suspended sentence and had to pay a measly half-a-million forint fine, public anger swelled. And so, after this mishandled affair, Viktor Orbán changed tactics. He promised much harsher punishments for pedophilic crimes, and his loyal supporters swung into action. It was Máté Kocsis, leader of the Fidesz delegation in parliament, and Gabriella Selmeczi, whose parliamentary career began in 1994, who received the job of overseeing the creation of the new law.

A year later, at the end of May, the proposal for a stricter law on pedophilic crimes was ready, and only a few legal scholars offered critical comments. Attila Péterfalvi, president of National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, was somewhat troubled by the relative ease with which individuals could receive information on pedophiles listed on an internet database of known perpetrators, and Zsuzsa Sándor, a former judge and since her retirement a political commentator, found the language of the new law inaccurate and impossible to enforce. But the opposition parties, by and large, supported the proposal.

That was the case until a few days ago, when Kocsis and Selmeczi came forth with additional amendments, which then were promptly passed by the Fidesz majority in the legislative committee of the parliament. It had been clear for some time that the government’s intention was conflate pedophilia with homosexuality, and therefore it was not exactly unexpected that some reference to homosexuality would be included in the final bill. After all, Orbán had earlier announced that “Hungary is a tolerant and patient country when it comes to homosexuality, but there is a red line that cannot be crossed: leave our children alone.”

Budapest Pride, 2019

In committee, the Fidesz members voted against an opposition proposal that a child appearing on pornographic footage could be considered a casualty, which would be a legally stronger category than the current victim classification. But they passed an amendment that would ban the portrayal of homosexuality or gender reassignment to children under the age of 18. Another part of the proposed law states that “not only would pornographic or self-depicting sexually explicit content be banned for those under the age of 18 but also content that promotes or displays gender reassignment or homosexuality.” If the full parliament passes this amendment, sex education in schools will be able to cover sex only between those who were born as males and females, because, according to the amendment, “when teaching pupils about sexual culture, sexual life, sexual orientation and sexual development, particular attention shall be paid to the provisions of Article XVI (1) of the Basic Law which reads that Hungary ‘protects the right of children to self-identity according to their birth sex and ensures education according to values based on the constitutional identity and Christian culture of our country.’”

Moreover, sex education in schools must be provided by an organization that is specifically designated by state authorities to perform such a task because “representatives of certain organizations seek to influence children’s sexual development through what they call a sensitization program in the context of anti-discrimination which may cause serious harm to children’s physical, mental, and moral development.” After the Fidesz majority in the committee voted for these amendments, Gergely Arató, a DK member of Parliament’s Legislative Committee, regretfully announced that, after this decision, his party most likely will not be able to vote for this law which includes these amendments, although they were planning to support it in its original form.

As soon as word of the new amendments was out, several NGOs responded to the news. Amnesty International Hungary, Budapest Pride, the Háttér Társaság, the Labrisz Leszbikus Egyesület, and the Prizma Transgender Community in a joint statement wrote, “Freedom of expression and children’s rights would also be severely restricted by Fidesz with this new proposal, similar to the Russian Propaganda Law, to ban any school-based LGBTQI education program and social advertising in schools.” A demonstration is planned for Monday

Róbert Alföldi, a much-admired theater director and a gay man, wrote on his Facebook page, “elections are coming up, we need to find new groups to target, to hate, and which will distract us from everything else. Conflating sexual orientation and gender identity with pedophilia is the most despicable method a government can use.” He ironically asked Gabriella Selmeczi whether she truly thinks that “watching Károly Makk’s film ‘Looking at Each Other’’ [in English ‘Another Way’] as a teenager would make you a lesbian. And we wonder why the Pope is reluctant to meet…”

Some people suspect more insidious motives on the part of the government in this case. Miklós Hargitai, associate editor-in-chief of Népszava, postulates that Viktor Orbán’s hope was that the opposition parties wouldn’t support the law on pedophilia and that, as a result, a new campaign against them could be launched. Therefore, the government introduced amendments that ensured their opposition to the bill.

In an opinion piece titled “The good pedophile,” Hargitai accuses the government of preventing sex education that would lighten the burden of teenagers who are not quite certain of their sexuality. According to him, in Hungary a young homosexual is 30 times more likely to commit suicide than a heterosexual in the same age group. At the same time, the new law on pedophilia deliberately ignores a group where it is significantly present, the Catholic clergy. As he writes, “the government continues to acknowledge that the church does not extradite its own pedophiles, so they are allowed to work with children while the state authorities turn a blind eye. In other words, there are the good pedophiles—from whom Fidesz can hope for political support—who are not harassed. And there are those who are not pedophiles but would do something about the hateful practices of the authorities.”

As for pedophilia in the Catholic Church, it will most likely receive greater scrutiny in Hungary in the near future because Rita Perintfalvi’s book, For which there is no excuse: Sexual predators in the Church, just appeared. Perintfalvi is a Catholic theologian who teaches at the Catholic Theological Faculty of the Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz. The first admiring reviews have already appeared, and the book is being exhibited at the Margó Literary Festival. I suspect that the topic will be difficult to ignore for long.

June 12, 2021

With Fudan, the Orbán government is finally on the back foot

Yesterday I was listening to a Hungarian radio program when people started arriving for a demonstration against the Orbán government’s decision to invite Fudan University to establish its first European campus. Regular programming was interrupted a couple of times to report on the size and mood of the crowd at the first demonstration since the beginning of pandemic.

The initial accounts were somewhat discouraging. The crowd was disappointingly small and the mood subdued. As the reporter put it, “People forgot how to demonstrate.” Mind you, the government, whose chief pandemic expert just announced that the COVID-19 pandemic is over for good, placed incredible obstacles in the way of a successful demonstration. Although an unlimited number of people can attend football games, current regulations limit the size of demonstrations to 500 participants. Thus, several smaller demonstrations had to be planned for multiple locations in the city. Only those who had a card attesting to the fact that they had received at least one shot against COVID-19 could officially take part in the march. The others were confined to the sidewalks. Eventually, all of these groups converged on Kossuth Square in front of the parliament building.

Despite being a logistical nightmare, the demonstration was an unqualified success, which is forcing the Orbán government to rethink its strategy.

András Jámbor, formerly editor-in-chief of Mérce, was the organizer of the protest. Of late, many people who retired from politics years ago as well as former journalists, such as András Pikó, earlier a reporter at Klub Rádió and currently the mayor of District VIII, feel a moral obligation to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with opposition politicians. Jámbor is one of these. He first established a political movement called Szikra Mozgalom (Spark Movement) and currently is one of the candidates vying for a parliamentary seat in the forthcoming primaries in electoral district VI (József- and Ferencváros). As he said,

  • We have outsmarted Fidesz despite the absurd rule that makes it difficult to protest.
  • After a long time, we organized a united opposition rally, where the opposition could show unity. We have the strength, and a change of government is possible next year!
  • Together with you, we organized a strong demonstration whose voice reached everyone in the country.
  • Fidesz voters could also hear that in exchange for a university that would not provide space for Hungarian students and would indebt the country, the government would give up plans for 12,000 dormitory places and 4,800 rental apartments. Chinese big capital would be chosen instead of housing for Hungarian students, young professionals, families, and workers!

Karácsony’s message can be summed up in these words: “The Fudan University issue is about whether we will be a free nation. It is about whether Hungary can be ruled by those who see politics as ruling instead of serving. The Fudan University case is the final and complete moral suicide of Fidesz.”

Initially, leading lights of Fidesz, even Csaba Dömötör, undersecretary in the “Propaganda Ministry,” showed little concern about the demonstration. He wrote on his Facebook page, “Today we had a daddy program with my daughter. I fulfilled an earlier promise, we took the new double-decker train to Nyugati, then we looked for an ice cream parlor downtown. It was good to see the capital of the country full of life again. The terraces were bustling, many people were playing sports again, and there were those who tried to protest on the left. I’m glad they could,” meaning that “the demonstration was the holiday of vaccination.”

More astute Fidesz politicians, however, presumably Viktor Orbán himself, saw the demonstration in a different light. This morning on Mandiner, the following exchange took place between Gergely Gulyás, the prime minister’s chief-of-staff, and the reporter who was interviewing him:

Mandiner: On Saturday, thousands of people protested against Fudan University in Budapest. In the opposition’s interpretation, this is not just an investment in a university, but proof of the government’s commitment to the East in relation to the West. What is the government’s response?

Gulyás: We don’t have to make declarations of allegiance to the Western world because we are part of it through NATO and EU membership, and they are our allies, despite our existing disputes. We understand their language, even if we don’t always like it. The Lord Mayor is the other way round: he does not understand their language, but he always loves it. We are glad that the Cold War is over. We are part of the Western alliance system, but we also seek fair relations with the major powers of the world, including China and Russia.

Mandiner: Will there be a Fudan University or not?

Gulyás: The Fudan University issue does not currently exist in a form suitable for public debate. Nor are there any plans. Once the plans are in place, once the financial conditions, the costs and the financing of the university’s construction are clear, then a decision can be made. We can get there in a year and a half from now. … We don’t want to “do good” to the people, including the people of Budapest, against their will. We therefore support the idea that, once the conditions of the project are known, the people of Budapest should be able to decide in a referendum whether they want Fudan University or not.

Karácsony was pleased that the demonstration was a success in the sense that the government ostensibly retreated. But the struggle is far from over. Today the following message appeared on his Facebook page: “I call on the opposition prime ministerial candidates to make it clear together, to write an official letter to the President of China, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, and the Chinese Premier that in 2022, after the change of government, whichever of us leads the new government, the Chinese Communist University will not be built in Budapest…. Although the government has started to back down and obfuscate on the matter, we know them, so tomorrow I will start talks with Klára Dobrev, Péter Jakab, András Fekete-Győr, Péter Márki-Zay, and József Pálinkás on a common stand.”

Klára Dobrev was the first to respond. She fully supports Karácsony’s idea of a common letter informing the Chinese leadership that the new Hungarian government will “cancel the contract for the Chinese Communist Party’s planned university in Budapest.” She also called attention to another “eerily similar case, the never-recoverable Budapest-Belgrade railway, which is also based on a gigantic Chinese loan and also serves Chinese interests and businesses close to Fidesz.”

There are some remarkable aspects of the Fudan issue which, I’m sure, we will analyze further, perhaps for several days. Right off the bat, the opposition is bringing up points that should serve it well in the 2022 election. One is that the fiercely anti-communist Orbán government is trafficking with a harsh communist regime. Another is the opposition’s frequent references to poor students from the provinces and even small villages who don’t have have access to inexpensive dormitories and who become indebted because of the extremely high rents in the capital. In addition, highlighting the colonization efforts of the Chinese and stressing Hungarian independence might appeal to the nationalistic impulses of Hungarians.

The winning Fidesz rhetoric of the past decade is, with only minor modifications and a change in the cast of characters, being co-opted by the opposition and used against the current regime.

June 6, 2021

Orbán has abandoned the idea of regulating Facebook; he will rely on his internet hussars instead

I don’t believe that too many of our readers know about the Megaphone Center, established last summer by István Kovács, strategic director of the Center for Basic Rights, a government-financed legal think tank.

The aim of Megaphone is “to find and amplify national voices on the net.” To that end, it offers formal training to volunteers that will introduce the latest trends and teach people how to use social media most effectively. And if someone needs help establishing a video blog “to reach more people,” the center will be there to lend a hand.

Kovács claimed that the initial capital needed for this new enterprise came from “conservative businessmen,” which is unlikely. In the last few years the Center for Basic Rights has received more than one billion forints from Antal Rogán’s “propaganda ministry,” and the investigative journalists at Átlátszó suspect that the 56 million forints Megaphone received two months after its establishment came from the same source. Just as with the Center for Basic Rights, Megaphone has a nonprofit company behind it. It is brazenly called Megaphone Digital Incubator, which indicates that Kovács and Company aren’t bothering to hide the fact that they are training pro-government “internet hussars,” as Átlátszó calls them.

Megaphone announced some of the “instructors,” who happen to be Fidesz media personalities, such as Philip Rákay, the man responsible for the organization of Fidesz mass rallies, Dániel Bohár, presenter at the far-right Pesti TV of Pesti Srácok, and Dávid Filep, the author of an adventure novel. But Kovács said that the center was looking for others who are willing to help. Since then, Zsolt Bayer announced that he will join the “instructors of propaganda” that have gathered around Megaphone. Dániel Deák, the “leading analyst” of Mária Schmidt’s Institute of XXI Century, will also be a new addition to the illustrious faculty.

The first rumblings in Fidesz circles about the ill treatment of the “national side” occurred in May 2019, when Magyar Nemzet announced that Facebook had banished the advertising accounts of some newspapers and news sites of Mediaworks Hungary Zrt. The paper suspected that the reason for the decision was ideological and political even though some of the media outlets, like Nemzeti Sport and Mindmegette, a gastronomical website, have nothing to do with politics.

Actually, the Orbán government wasn’t as innocent in this story as Magyar Nemzet made out. A month earlier, HVG published an article titled “Fidesz has made a killer campaign machine out of Facebook and is now afraid of losing it.” Its campaign was met with international indignation, and Facebook promised to filter political ads just before the EP elections in May 2019. Most of the Hungarian ads were about the threat of an African and Middle Eastern invasion, and they went as far as to falsify some of the photos and videos. This HVG article, richly illustrated with photographs, shows the enormity of that propaganda, which cost Fidesz nothing but whose impact was considerable. So much so that Emma Graham-Harrison and Shaun Walker of The Guardian devoted a whole article to Hungary, “a crucible, where Facebook’s ability to police its network is being tested.” Although Facebook’s approach to the problem was muddled earlier, by 2019, the Orbán government was facing increased scrutiny. As a result, it started to contemplate how to make Facebook a toothless tiger.

It seemed to be just a question of time before the Orbán government would “regulate” Facebook, especially since at the beginning of this year it became known that Poland was planning to make “censoring of social media accounts illegal.” Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki compared the decision of social media companies to remove accounts with Poland’s experience during the communist area. Since it is no secret that the Polish and Hungarian governments work hand-in-hand, with the Polish announcement Hungarian commentators began to fear a similar move in Hungary. This seemed especially likely since Justice Minister Judit Varga had reported her suspicion in December 2020 that both Facebook and Twitter were using “shadow banning,” a practice of blocking or partially blocking a user from an online community in such a way that it will not be readily apparent to the user that they have been banned.

The reason for her suspicion was the large drop in the size of her followers. A similar charge was made by Zoltán Kovács, whose propaganda activities take place on Twitter. Varga was joined by Katalin Novák today, when she claimed that Facebook doesn’t even tolerate comments on support of the family. A couple of days ago, István Hollik, the director of communication for Fidesz, announced that followers of “right-wing Christian Democratic members of parliament, ministers, and undersecretaries have radically decreased while left-wing comments appear as abundant as before.” It doesn’t seem to occur to Hollik and others that perhaps the popularity of their politicians has dropped precipitously because of their handling of the pandemic.

What Varga had in mind wasn’t at all clear. In January she announced on her Facebook page that her ministry was working on a proposal that would be discussed in parliament sometime in the spring. “We want to achieve nothing more in the case of the tech companies than legal, transparent, and verifiable operations. Nothing more than that which applies to other companies, large companies or small entrepreneurs,” she wrote. Hungary will work together with the European Union on regulation, but “recent events have shown that we need to move faster to protect people.” Sure, the Orbán government must hurry to restrict the social media before the national elections next April or May. From this description, one had the ominous feeling that the Orbán regime would not be satisfied with the Polish solution that would allow an absolutely free flow of political messages on Facebook and Twitter.

At this point, Tamás Szele wrote an opinion piece titled “Farewell to Facebook.” Having had the pleasure of listening to Varga’s interview on the subject on the notorious Pesti TV of Pesti Srácok, he expected the move against Facebook within a couple of months.

Szele, luckily, was overly pessimistic. Telex learned today that the government has abandoned the idea of tampering with Hungarian social media and that no substantial change will occur before the national election. On March 28, Judit Varga, on a long question-and-answer video, said that EU Commissioner Thierry Breton (in charge of the Common Market), who is responsible for “the prevention and countering of disinformation and fake information online, while preserving freedom of expression, freedom of the press and media pluralism,” had asked the Hungarian government not to rush ahead but to wait for the law the European Union is preparing at the moment. Varga announced that the “Hungarian government will partner” with the EU in working on this matter.

Thus, it seems that opposition politicians and critical commentators of the Orbán regime who anticipated the nightmare of governmental censorship of Facebook and Twitter can relax a bit. At least Orbán & Co. have been persuaded not to close the door to free communication on social media before the election. Now they’ll simply have to ramp up their efforts to get their message across and drown out voices from the opposition. They have a gigantic megaphone at their disposal.

April 13, 2021

Can the European Commission use leverage against the Orbán government?

A quick look at the international press reveals that a number of countries — Italy, Romania, and Spain, among others — are working on the plans they have to submit to the European Commission before they can receive their allotted portion of the Recovery and Resilience Funds (RRF).

If negotiations are currently underway between the Commission and Budapest regarding details of the RRF, the Hungarian people certainly don’t know anything about them. The Orbán government doesn’t like to share information with the country’s citizens in general, and it especially loathes revealing anything that might cloud the rosy announcements the government promulgates on all possible occasions.

That’s why an exclusive from Reuters sent shockwaves in the world of Hungarian politics and the media. Reuters claimed that the Hungarian government was told “to reform its public procurement laws to curb systemic fraud” before it could receive the fabulous amount of recovery funds to which Hungary is entitled. Moreover, the author of the exclusive claimed that the document, dated January 26, was seen by the staff of the agency. It calls, the article claims, for “improved data transparency and accessibility.” There was no immediate response from the Hungarian government to a request for comment.

A few hours later, another Reuters article appeared on the same subject, giving more details about the contents of the letter allegedly sent to Budapest. It included the following paragraph: “The Commission has been demanding better analysis and control of public procurement risks for many years. At the same time, there seems to be resistance at the highest level of politics.”

Monday night, Erik Bánki (Fidesz), chairman of the parliamentary committee on the economy, more or less admitted that in the last three years the Orbán government has had disagreements with the European Union over the country’s procurement practices. He argued, however, that the perception of corrupt practices is due to the Orbán government’s unstinting transparency in its public reporting of procurement cases, a comment that is widely disputed by the general public.

The next morning, Gergely Gulyás, Viktor Orbán’s chief-of-staff, called the Reuters information fake news because “the government did not receive any formal or informal requests from the European Union on any procurement case.” On the other hand, he gave details about the current negotiations over the RRF and the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). The Orbán government insists that “the transparency of public procurement procedures is outstanding, with 98% of public procurements openly available. The number of unpublished procurement procedures has fallen from 3,600 to 274 in the last six years.” We should, however, note that ATV recently reported that between 2015 and 2019 Hungary spent 4% of EU resources in contravention of regulations while the EU average was 0.36% and the second worst country was Slovakia, with 0.53%.

It is likely that the document the Reuters staff saw was a draft that may be an answer to the 13-page outline which, according to HVG’s Eurológus, Hungary had already submitted as its proposal for the use of the RRF resources. He was also told by one of the spokesmen of the European Commission that “the national development plans should address the relevant country-specific recommendations, strengthen growth potential and the economic, institutional, and social resilience of the member state as a condition for granting aid.” Therefore, it is possible that, just like Romania, Hungary will have to revise its original plan.

Sensing trouble ahead, the government media set out to explain who is really responsible for the European Union’s “unfounded charge” of corruption. Within the vast array of Fidesz propaganda is a blog that publishes articles from members of the Firewall Group, about whom we know nothing, but on whom Magyar Nemzet and other Fidesz publications often rely. According to this decidedly far-right blog, it is Transparency International, financed by George Soros, that is responsible for this latest attack on the Orbán government by those EU commissioners who are partially kept by the billionaire. He is the conductor of the anti-Hungarian orchestra. The truth is that Open Society Foundations’ contribution to Transparency International is just a fraction of its total budget.

This primitive article on this obscure website was immediately republished by Híradó, the main vehicle of MTVA (Media Service Support and Asset Management Fund), which supplies the “proper interpretation” of news to television and radio stations. Here the government media service accuses the Hungarian section of Transparency International of falsification of data in the report the office published on January 23. In it, the organization claimed that Hungary is the second most corrupt country in the European Union.

Gergely Gulyás is most likely correct that the Orbán government hasn’t received an official answer to its proposals about the way in which it plans to spend the money it will receive from the RRF package. But Budapest must realize that “the European Commission has a clear message for EU capitals in ongoing talks on the content of their recovery plans: unless you tackle some long-standing structural issues and commit to significant reforms, the money won’t flow.”

According to a recent article in Politico, EU Budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn said last month that “we need a better balance between reforms and investments.” If this remains the European Commission’s aim, Orbán will be in considerable trouble. He loves “investment,” especially when it benefits him and his friends, but his zeal for reform is sorely wanting. He knows from watching earlier governments’ efforts that reforms are often accompanied by the more stringent allocation of resources and/or by the population’s aversion to anything new and different.

The proposals are due by April 30, and the Commission will have two months to evaluate them. The final word is that of the Commission, and therefore it has a lot of leverage in these talks. The results might be known by the end of June.

February 9, 2021

The reception of family minister Katalin Novák’s video is anything but enthusiastic

It is well known among those familiar with Hungarian society that feminism was, at least until very recently, a notion associated with masculine, bossy women. Few people dared to call themselves feminists despite the fact that feminism simply means the “advocacy of women’s rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.” Of late, the broader concept of gender equality has been gaining ground. It is defined as “the state in which access to rights or opportunities is unaffected by gender.” Gender equality fares even worse than feminism in Viktor Orbán’s illiberal state because the very concept of gender is excluded from public discussion.

If, however, the regime keeps up its propaganda for a family model based on nineteenth-century ideas, soon enough they will achieve the opposite of what they would like to accomplish. The constant harping on women’s duty to save the nation by producing children has long since reached the saturation point and is increasingly being met by hostile responses.

At the center of these family-oriented political efforts is Katalin Novák, minister without portfolio in charge of families. Novák is a devoted follower of Viktor Orbán and doesn’t seem to hold a grudge despite Orbán’s reluctance to make her a full-fledged minister in the ministry of human resources. Novák faithfully served Zoltán Balog for four years, and, although her name came up in 2018 as a possible successor, she was passed over. She was saddled with a new, even more incompetent boss in the person of Miklós Kásler. Two years later, she received a small gift of appreciation. She was given a new title and a higher salary, but still no ministry and no budget. But she keeps smiling and spreading her message about children, family, and Christian life.

Yesterday, Novák gave a five-minute inspirational talk titled “How can a woman be successful?” on a website called Axióma, a rather ambitious title. It is supposed to be a community site where the editors “popularize public themes.” So far, there are only seven videos, including Novák’s. Three of them deal with American topics: a lecture on the difference between Democrats and Republicans and two on the American election. Novák’s talk doesn’t have English subtitles, but the others do. All follow the government line, and the site is most likely financed by the government

Novák’s video, delivered in her characteristic sugary sweet style, caused quite an uproar on the day of its appearance. After a promising beginning about life choices, she entered dangerous waters by telling her audience that “you shouldn’t think that we women should constantly compete with men. You shouldn’t think that at every moment of our lives we should compare ourselves to each other and have at least the same rank and the same salary as the other.” Moreover, “it is [her] opinion that we women have been given so much strength that we are able to take over even the burden of others.” Further, she asked women to take up the responsibility, “without giving up their privileges in the misinterpreted struggle of emancipation.” Finally, “let’s be glad that we were born a woman…. Let us rejoice that we have been given the beauty of love and caring for others. Let’s be glad that we have someone to take responsibility for…. Let us experience and enjoy the miracle that, as a thinking creative woman, we can be fulfilled in our vocation and also have the opportunity to partake of the miracle of giving life.”

Telex, which sampled the video, pointed out that Novák, in her overenthusiasm for Orbán’s family policy, was justifying unequal pay for men and women. At the moment, women make 16% less than men do in similar positions. Women were also not thrilled to hear that it is rip-roaring to take up other people’s burdens. HVG correctly noted that the phrase Novák used about “not giving up our privileges in a misinterpreted struggle of emancipation” comes straight from Phyllis Schlafly, in her opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment.

Bernadett Szél responded, reproaching the minister for trying to persuade women to be satisfied with their lot instead of using “her power and influence to make what she has been given available to masses of women.” She should use her position to help the cause of social equality, fairer burden-sharing, the advancement of women in all areas of life, Szél continued. Novák, in her opinion, stands by an unjust system and tries to sell the choice of mother and housewife as a “brave decision,” when for most women there is no such choice.

Soon enough, the independent media was full of the objectionable message of the “family minister.” Magyar Nemzet came to her rescue by trying to convince people that the “liberal” media had maliciously distorted her message, but the quotation the paper used (cited in part above) only reinforced Novák’s message that offended so many women. “Let us live and enjoy the miracle that, as a thinking, creative woman, we can be fulfilled in our profession and we can also have the opportunity to partake of the miracle of giving life through childbirth, and we can also give real life through responsible care. There is no recipe, but the road is there for all of us. Let us dare to set out on it!” The article accuses the “liberal commentators” of charging the government with annulling women’s struggle for equality, ignoring the rights of same-sex marriages, and interfering in the private lives of citizens. Later, Novák was the guest of Hír TV, where she expressed her regret that so many people had misunderstood her message.

But then, this afternoon, an embarrassing article from 2010 came to light, which Katalin Novák wrote for a competition on an internet site run by Zsuzsa Rácz, a writer. The topic was the lot of women who have to balance profession and motherhood. The article received a special prize. At that time, Novák had been at home for seven years with her three young children. The article is full of complaints. She has no time to read a more serious book or to improve her knowledge of German. Her life is limited to looking after the three small children, who are often noisy and do not behave. Her time with the children created a bond between them, but she is often impatient and loses her temper. And now let Novák tell her own story. “I get bored by dumb storybooks; I want to exchange two sentences with an adult while no one interrupts me, and I want to be able to pee with the door closed. I would like to use my two degrees, the four foreign languages I know. They call me back to work. To a responsible position, in an exciting area, in an even more exciting period, among talented colleagues. It is an eight-hour job.” Since the story begins with her playing with her one-and-a-half-year-old daughter on the swing, she finishes the story with “Up and down, up and down. The swing flies, the little girl laughs, and I don’t know if I should go or stay.” As we know, she took the job and became an important leader of Fidesz and a pivotal member of the third Orbán government.

December 15, 2020

Anti-gay-lesbian amendments to the adoption law

In the midst of the most serious pandemic in living memory, the Orbán government is busily amending the Basic Law, for the ninth time in nine years. And the European Commission is taking notice that some of the amendments are designed to discriminate against gays and lesbians. Discrimination and anti-gay propaganda in Poland is especially worrisome, but Hungary is not far behind, as the government is systematically limiting the rights of the LGBTQ community. I have already covered the amendments that touch upon marriage, gender, and the Christian education of children. Today I will look at amendments that deal with rules regarding adoption.

One of the peculiar aspects of the October 10 passage of the amendments to the adoption law is that a thorough rewriting of the 1993 law took place only a few months earlier. On June 16, the Hungarian parliament enacted Law 2020.LXV, which made adoption easier. By and large, the new law met the approval of those who had found the earlier rules far too confining and cumbersome. A popular blog, orokbe.hu, written by Zsuzsa Mártonffy, the author of a book for adoptive parents, welcomed the changes, with one exception: that “expectant” parents will no longer have to take a 40-hour course to prepare them for the difficult job of parenting.

Yet, only four months later, amendments to Law 2020.LXV were introduced and naturally approved by the Fidesz super majority. Evidently, Human Resources Minister Miklós Kásler and his team had left out some ideological considerations important to the far-right Hungarian government. It was discovered that same-sex couples, through a legal loophole, could adopt children as single individuals. It was not easy to acquire a child, but it was not impossible. From here on, this route is more or less closed; only married couples (and, of course, same-sex couples can’t marry in Hungary) are eligible for parenting. The official explanation is that, in the “interest of the child,” he or she should have both a mother and a father. The government claims that including this amendment didn’t change the adoption procedure substantially, which is incorrect. In the past, adoption took place at the county level. If the local adoption agency couldn’t find an appropriate prospective couple, it could consider applications from individuals. This time, the procedure is different. The agency will have to search the entire country before it considers applications from unmarried people.

Naturally, Tamás Dombos, the spokesman of Háttér Társaság (Background Society), an organization defending the rights of the LGBTQ community, sees it differently. What is especially galling, he says, is that from here on Katalin Novák, minister without portfolio in charge of families, will have the right to make exceptions to the rule on an individual basis. Psychologists working for adoption agencies are also appalled because their expertise will, from here on, be disregarded, and their role will be assumed by a politician. Apparently, for a long time Novák has been against allowing single people to adopt children and at times tried to interfere with the adoption agency’s decisions.

Dombos claims that, under current law, eligibility to adopt a child does not depend on either gender identity or sexual orientation. In May 2019, the Ministry of Justice wrote to the Background Society that “the purpose of the pre-adoption procedure is to determine whether the adopter is fit to adopt the child on the basis of his or her personality and circumstances. Sexual orientation and gender identity are therefore not disqualifications.” Therefore, the new amendment can be challenged legally.

The timing of these new restrictive measures is strange because Hungarian society is becoming more tolerant of same-sex couples becoming parents. For example, 42% against 31% think that same-sex couples can be good parents, and more people than not think that it is better for the child to have a single parent or a same-sex couple as parents than to be raised in an institution. Moreover, most married couples want to have blond, blue-eyed babies and refuse to take older children or Romas. Single people are often ready to adopt both. As is now stands, yearly about 250, often Roma, children are adopted by foreigners.

While Hungary is limiting the rights of the LGBTQ community, the European Commission is working out a comprehensive program in its defense across the European Union. For example, homophobic speech would be considered a (hate) crime, alongside such crimes as drug trafficking and money laundering. Věra Jourová, obviously not intimidated by Viktor Orbán’s threats, said that the commission is following events in Hungary because of the new measures that would “ensure that only heterosexual married couples can adopt children.” And Jourová wasn’t impressed with the Hungarian government’s justification of its actions on gender identity on the grounds of Creation and createdness. As she wrote, such a claim belongs to “the authoritarian playbook and it does not have a place in the European Union.” She acknowledged that family law is the competence of the member states but added that “when applying national law, member states must also respect their international human rights obligations and apply EU law.”

Jourová pointed out that so far 21 member states recognize some form of same-sex partnership but only 14 of those allow adoption by same-sex couples, posing legal problems in the union. If someone moves from a country that allows same-sex adoption to another where it is not legal, “all of a sudden they will stop being your child once you cross the border.” This, she noted, is unacceptable. And in a warning to the Polish and Hungarian governments, Jourová said that the EU will be more vigilant in the future in ensuring that EU funds are not provided to countries that fail to respect the equality of its citizens.

November 14, 2020

Public reaction to the quality of Hungarian healthcare

The Hungarian Medical Association (Magyar Orvosi Kamara/MOK) published four shocking photos on its Facebook page on Friday. Under the photos was the following brief explanation: “Covid center, resting place and bathroom for the doctors. Our colleagues persevere even under these circumstances.”

In no time, hundreds of comments appeared, beginning with a gentleman who called on the person responsible for the photos to report the case to the military commander the Orbán government placed at the head of the hospitals “because unfortunately many hospital directors are totally unfit to run their own institutions.” Of course, a lot of people attested to the generally rundown state of Hungarian hospitals, but the government also had numerous defenders who claimed that Orbán and company are not responsible for the neglected state of the facilities. A few people were even convinced that the photos “were the vile forgeries of a lunatic” or, if real, most likely were taken in Romania or Albania.

The early commenters all agreed that MOK made a mistake by not revealing the name of the hospital where these unspeakable conditions exist. At that point MOK explained its reasons for keeping the name of the hospital secret: “the wind is fierce” in the healthcare industry and “the colleagues” are afraid of their superiors. I assume the “wind” refers to the generally fearful atmosphere that exists in the sector. And those who took the photos and who “work with honor in the care of COVID patients” were afraid to be identified. So, those who took the photographs were not the patients or visitors to the hospital but the staff itself, and they must be sheltered. MOK does hope that the person who is responsible for the maintenance of the hospital will recognize the hidden corners of his own institution and will remedy the situation. MOK reassured people that the photos are genuine and disclosed that they were taken in one of the cities with “county rights.” That doesn’t tell us much because, all told, 23 cities are designated as county centers.

MOK’s explanation for its decision to keep the location of this disgusting bathroom a secret didn’t impress devoted Fidesz supporters, who look upon the new leadership of the medical association as a gathering place of “communist snitches” inherited from the Gyurcsány era. Pro-government commenters are certain that “checking of the facilities is done regularly.” In any case, who would believe that a hospital in that state would be allowed to operate? Even if such an abominable state of affairs exists, “it shouldn’t be used in the interest of sly criminals.” I guess the sly criminals are the new leaders of the Hungarian Medical Association.

One female commenter proudly announced that in the last three years she visited three hospitals both as a patient and as a visitor. In all three places, the bathrooms were in perfect order. MOK’s photos are not realistic. It must be an old bathroom that hasn’t been used for years. The bathroom pictured is a stage set that is supposed to create “a public circus.” A doctor claimed that the hospitals where he works as an attending physician have separate resting rooms with television and computers. They look like 5-star hotels.

Among the many unknown real or fictitious names in the comment section, I found one that many people are familiar with: Csaba Böjte from Transylvania, who is a great favorite of the Orbán regime. Böjte is a Franciscan monk and the director and founder of the Saint Francis Foundation of Deva, Romania. His foundation provides food, housing, and education to homeless orphans and children living in extreme poverty. Currently, 2,500 children are living in the homes and shelters of the foundation. Father Böjte’s solution to the problem of the hospitals is simple. “If a priest doesn’t keep order in his parish, the bishop would send him packing. It is not the bishop who needs to put things in order, but the one who lives and works there!! The hospital director should also be sacked if his hospital looks like this. It is not the shame of the state, but of those who work there!” Böjte of course ignores the serious underfinancing and understaffing of the Hungarian healthcare system.

Here and there one can find voices of sanity. A woman reported from “one of these squalid” hospitals where she is being quarantined that “from the inside it seems that renovating this building would require at least as much money as building, let’s say, a stadium.” Some commenters, as opposed to the timid MOK, are quite ready to point to conditions in specific hospitals as horrific examples of neglect. Péterfy Hospital, which we are familiar with from Reporter’s description, is one of the examples cited. According to a woman, in the internal medicine section of the hospital one can flush the toilet only by pulling a lever in the water tank.

Soon enough the blame was shifted to the government for spending money “on the Romanians,” on stadiums, building hospitals abroad, and giving billions to churches. As I indicated yesterday, resentment is rising over the Orbán government’s spending sizable sums on improving the lot of the Hungarian minorities in the neighboring countries, which in many cases is expressed as “money spent on the Romanians.” A commenter quipped that “the Orbán government renovated 3,000 churches in the Carpathian Basin to provide places of worship for those who are afraid of dying of COVID-19.”

All told, about 15,000 people viewed MOK’s photos and about 500 comments appeared. The pro-Fidesz contingent was large. The opposition is certain that Fidesz activists pay special attention to sites like that of MOK, which is currently considered to be a government-critical organization.

The two political sides leveled the same criticism against MOK — that the medical association should have named the hospital where the photos were taken. I would go even further. MOK should have collected photos from many of those hospitals where patients and visitors complain about the sanitary condition of the facilities. Yes, I know it is forbidden to take photos in the hospitals, but, in reality, who could prevent people from taking them? There is strength in numbers. Photos from one hospital can get one hospital director into trouble, but photos from 10 or 15 hospitals would carry more weight and would make it clear that it is not just negligence that is responsible for the sorry state of Hungarian healthcare.

September 20, 2020