PM Orbán ordered the National Information Center to compile the list of foreign-funded NGOs, media

PM Orbán made two threats the previous month. In his State of the Nation speech, he said his government would like to eliminate the Soros network by shutting its financial taps by Easter. In his 15 March speech, Orbán talked about stink bugs that survived the winter clearing: in his speech, stink bugs stood for politicians, judges, journalists, “fake” NGOs, and political activists “bought” with foreign money. Based on insider information, before his 15 March speech, he ordered the National Information Center to compile a list of foreign-funded NGOs and media outlets.

Orbán cabinet to target foreign-funded NGOs and media outlets?

According to Szabolcs Panyi, a Hungarian investigative journalist, the National Information Center received a new task from PM Orbán weeks ago. They had to compile a list of foreign-funded NGOs and media outlets regardless of the amount of money received from abroad. He did not make it clear whether the office finished the task.

On 15 March, celebrating the 1848 civic revolution, he talked about politicians, judges, journalists, fake NGOs, and political activists bought by foreign organisations, saying he would like to crush the entire system. In his controversial speech, he said “the stink bugs survived the winter. We’ll dismantle the financial machinery that has bought politicians, judges, journalists, fake NGOs, and political activists… They’ve survived too much.”

Orbán immediately started to poll

Orbán shared a post on Facebook shortly after he said those words, clarifying that he meant only his challenger, Péter Magyar, and called him a stink bug because he tapped his ex-wife, former Justice Minister Judit Varga (and published the recording, HERE is our article in the issue). Experts believe that Orbán immediately began polling the impact of his unorthodox views, and the results showed that most people (mis?)interpreted them as a threat to all Hungarians who do not support the prime minister rather than as anything else.

According to Mr Panyi, the prime minister ordered the National Information Center, a secret service of Hungary, to compile a list of all NGOs and media outlets that ever received foreign financial allocations. Orbán gave out the order before his 15 March speech.

“While there has been much speculation about what these threats actually mean, the fact that Hungarian intelligence has now been explicitly ordered to properly list those whom Orbán labels as stink bugs and foreign agents—vowing to eliminate them—marks a dangerous escalation”, Mr Panyi wrote on Goulash, the newsletter of VSquare.

Chinese and Russian-backed NGOs and media outlets will not be listed

Panyi could only confirm the information with one inside source, so he did not publish a VSquare article about it but included the information in his newsletter. The source added that they would not focus on Chinese or Russian-backed NGOs or media outlets, only those supported by the USA or Western European countries in the past ten years.

Panyi said that, to his knowledge, “this is the first confirmed instance of Orbán using Hungary’s national security apparatus to openly target NGOs and media on a mass scale.” He highlighted that the true purpose of such a list remains unclear, the possible outcomes range from leaking it to the government-controlled media for some naming-and-shaming campaign or using it as a source for tax investigations, prosecution, or even new discriminatory laws.

Intelligence-sharing jeopardised?

Panyi believes such “anti-democratic operations” jeopardise intelligence sharing with Western European countries. He named the Netherlands and Germany, whose information on NGOs can become misused by the Orbán cabinet to target, fine, or legislate against Hungarian organisations that received money from those countries.

Sovereignty Protection Office identifies ‘organisation channeling US public funds’ to Hungarian opposition media

The Sovereignty Protection Office has identified Internews as the ‘organisation channeling US public funds to Hungarian media critical of the government”, the body said on Wednesday. The investigation revealed that “media support programmes from the US were not only providing technological support but also raised political and ideological expectations” towards the news outlets in question, the office said. “Internews is working to help the American progressive elite in putting certain countries’ decision-makers and governments under pressure.”

Internews is being funded by USAID, US financier George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the National Endowment for Democracy, the statement said. “The latter played a serious role in financing the opposition coalition during the 2022 elections [in Hungary],” the body said.

Internews “is, in reality, dependent on the US government and its national security organisations,” it said. The statement said Internews provided “not only money but also the technology and content to spread specific narratives to the outlets, which had to represent the values and messages of the network and show activity in specific topics.” The organisation is particularly active in central and eastern Europe, especially in Poland and Hungary, it said. Its media programmes have been funding outlets, 444.hu among them, since 2010, the statement said.

Read also:

• PM Orbán calls for a fight against the Empire of Brussels, talks about “Weber minions” and stink bugs – check out the full speech HERE
• EU funds for NGOs must be investigated, Orbán cabinet says