{"id":1682,"date":"2014-12-16T19:28:50","date_gmt":"2014-12-16T18:28:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/?p=1682"},"modified":"2014-12-16T19:28:50","modified_gmt":"2014-12-16T18:28:50","slug":"human-rights-commissioners-report-critical-of-hungarys-media-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/de\/2014\/12\/16\/human-rights-commissioners-report-critical-of-hungarys-media-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"Human Rights Commissioner\u2019s report critical of Hungary\u2019s media freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) has welcomed today <a href=\"https:\/\/wcd.coe.int\/com.instranet.InstraServlet?command=com.instranet.CmdBlobGet&amp;InstranetImage=2658043&amp;SecMode=1&amp;DocId=2218468&amp;Usage=2\">the report on Hungary<\/a> by the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, Mr. <strong>Nils Mui\u017enieks<\/strong>, criticising the country\u2019s bad media freedom records and calling for changes to the media law.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Judit Acsay,<\/strong> the Vice-President of the EFJ affiliate in Hungary (M\u00daOSZ), says \u201cthe report accurately summarises the state of media freedom in Hungary. I hope this will put pressure on the government to push for changes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The report published today (16\/12\/2014) after Mr. Mui\u017enieks\u2019s visit to Hungary in July 2014 has examined various aspects relating to human rights in Hungary ranging from media freedom to discriminations. Mr. Mui\u017enieks has criticised that the media package that has been passed by the parliament has a chilling effect on journalistic freedom. He has called for changes to be made within the Media Act and an extension of the protection of journalists\u2019 sources to freelances, as well as the exclusion of print and online media from the media register.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe findings of this report show the extent of legal restrictions facing journalists and the media that contradicts international and European standards on freedom of expression and information. This is a clear case in which the government is abusing the law to muzzle the media.\u201d says <strong>Mogens Blicher Bjerreg\u00e5rd<\/strong>, EFJ President.<\/p>\n<p>Recent media reports show that a controversial government plan to conduct mandatory drug tests of politicians and journalists with the aim to fight against drug abuses has received support from the Prime Minister <strong>Viktor Orb\u00e1n<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is another ridiculous idea from the government\u201d, says <strong>Mogens Blicher Bjerreg\u00e5rd<\/strong>, EFJ President, \u201cand it should be scrapped immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The EFJ calls on the European Commission to take actions on the state of media freedom in Hungary and further its cooperation with other international institutions like the Council of Europe to safeguard Europe\u2019s democratic values and media freedom.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Capture-d\u2019e\u0301cran-2014-12-16-a\u0300-19.37.19.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-1688 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Capture-d\u2019e\u0301cran-2014-12-16-a\u0300-19.37.19-150x150.png\" alt=\"Capture d\u2019e\u0301cran 2014-12-16 a\u0300 19.37.19\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>The report also detailed various media problems as a result of the adoption of a media package. In 2010, Hungarian government adopted two main texts on media regulation: the <strong>Media Act<\/strong> and the <strong>Press Freedom Act<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The Commissioner\u2019s report listed of the impact of this \u201cmedia package\u201d on journalists\u2019 work in Hungary :<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Severe sanctions result in <strong>self-censorship<\/strong> among journalists and media organisations. The sanctions, imposed by the Media Council, goes from the suspension of a media service provider to fines of 200 million HUF (approximately 650 000 EUR).<\/li>\n<li>The Media Council and the Media Authority, which regulates media content, appear to be under <strong>political influence and control<\/strong>. \u201cThese bodies are led exclusively by members supported by the governing party.\u201d<\/li>\n<li><strong>Protection of the sources<\/strong> doesn\u2019t apply equally to all journalists. The Commissioner also notes that the law only protects the sources of those who are formally employed as journalists, but not the sources of freelance journalists.<\/li>\n<li>The media package that obliges all media outlets <strong>to register before being authorised<\/strong> to provide media services is \u201ccontrary to the principles of proportionality established by the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights\u201d.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Concentration of media-ownership<\/strong> results in a media market dominated by media linked to the ruling party.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The tax on advertising<\/strong> revenues restricts media to operate freely and therefore threaten Hungarian media pluralism. The government, which is the largest advertiser in the country, had withdrawn a large part of its advertising from independent media.<\/li>\n<li>Defamation is considered as a crime and stifles investigative journalism.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) is the largest organisation of journalists in Europe, representing over 320. 000 journalists in 60 journalists\u2019 organisations across 39 countries.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>(photo:\u00a0Nils Mui\u017enieks, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe &#8211; echr.dk)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) has welcomed today the report on Hungary by the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, Mr. Nils Mui\u017enieks, criticising the country\u2019s bad media freedom records and calling for changes to the media law. Judit Acsay, the Vice-President of the EFJ affiliate in Hungary (M\u00daOSZ), says \u201cthe report accurately summarises the state of media freedom in Hungary. I hope this will put pressure on the government to push for changes.\u201d The report published today (16\/12\/2014) after Mr. Mui\u017enieks\u2019s visit to Hungary in July 2014 has examined various aspects relating to human rights&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[44,61,96,121],"class_list":["post-1682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-coe","tag-efj","tag-hungary","tag-muosz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}