Coronavirus – Official: ‘Spreading false information during a state of emergency is wrong and dangerous’
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The Hungarian bill granting special powers to the government for the fight against the new coronavirus epidemic aims to stop fake news from undermining the efforts, Zoltán Kovács, the state secretary for international communications and relations, said in a blog post on abouthungary.hu late on Saturday.
Kovács reacted to reports on the bill submitted on Friday that would extend the duration of the extraordinary measures (those put in place to fight the coronavirus) until the end of the state of emergency.
The bill includes provisions to cover the possibility of a “forced parliamentary break”, which some media said was “prompting concerns”, he said.
The state secretary said that measure was necessary because “if Parliament has no quorum (because more than half of the MPs are missing), it will not be able to extend the state of emergency.”