The government has begun to restore the peace, normal daily life and humanity “the country so desperately needs”, Prime Minister Péter Magyar said in a speech ahead of the agenda in parliament on Tuesday.
Péter Magyar: Hungary victim of the Orbán regime
Regarding the two bills to be debated today, the prime minister said that the Sovereignty Protection Office, which would be scrapped under one of the proposals on the legislative agenda, “has usurped one of the most beautiful words in Hungarian history for its name”.
The second bill, aimed at curbing political advertisements capable of inciting hatred and ensuring that commercial advertisements fit into the townscape, he said that in recent years online forums and public spaces had been flooded with “images portraying terrifying enemies” with increasingly “horrifying threats”, causing “incalculable material, moral, and psychological damage to the nation”.
“The entire country has been a victim of the Orbán regime,” he said according to the Hungarian news agency.
He said people throughout the country had been “breathing more freely” since the new parliament was formed a month ago, “the significance of which is grasped by everyone, with the exception of an increasingly insular and inward-looking, failed elite.”
Sovereignty Protection Office threatened Hungarian citizens
Magyar said the Sovereignty Protection Office had been the “crown jewel” of the machinery designed to demolish the rule of law. “We should be proud of the abolition of this office, which, towering over Hungarian public life, had nothing to do with sovereignty … since it was capable of nothing more than threatening Hungarian citizens using the taxpayer monies flowing into its fabulous budget.”
The authority had not addressed issues such as Russian hackers breaching the foreign ministry’s databases, or matters connected to Chinese connections, residency bonds, Hungarian military being deployed to Chad, foreign criminal politicians hiding in Hungary or international influence operations, he said, adding that the body had only been “let lose on enemies of the government” in editorial offices and civil society organisations.
Magyar noted that the majority of those organisations were “ideologically very far removed from my own way of thinking”. At the same time, he called on them to voice criticism of his government freely and without fear.
Criticism of the incumbent government allowed
“In a free Hungary, there is no place for a state institution that treats criticism of the incumbent government as a threat to sovereignty and spends billions in public funds to determine which Hungarian citizens’ criticism is legitimate and which poses a national security risk.”
Regarding the proposal on restrictions on political advertising, Magyar said the previous government had tried “to turn the entire country into a backdrop for its own political propaganda, surrounding us … with enemies portrayed as terrifying and increasingly horrifying threats.”
Those ads had taught children that “it is natural to be afraid, it is natural to hate,” and millions of young people grew up in a country where politics conveyed the message that “there is always someone to fear and someone to blame,” he said.
In contrast, he noted, the Tisza Party has submitted a bill to parliament stating that political advertising must not violate human dignity, stigmatise communities, rely on collective guilt or create an image of a public enemy capable of inciting hatred.
Economy and Energy Minister István Kapitány donates entire salary to this organisation
People cannot be enemies – regardless of what they think about the world
“The role of politics is to represent, debate, argue, and persuade. Politicians are therefore prohibited from portraying people as pests, enemies, or threats in their own country,” he said, adding that the proposal did not restrict the expression of opinion, because the government’s goal was to guarantee everyone’s right to say what they think about the government, the opposition, politics and public life.
“Hungarians have sensed that if they can liberate the nation, they will be capable of other things as well. If we free ourselves from the burdens of the past, we can begin to believe … that we are capable of shaping our own destiny. When a nation believes in itself, it becomes capable of things it previously thought impossible,” Magyar said.
Péter Magyar: we shall not forget about Orbán’s crimes
