Reporters Without Borders: Viktor Orbán

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With him, an EU politician is on the list of enemies in the press for the first time: Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán

Photo: Omar Marques / Getty Images

For the organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) he embodies "in a particularly drastic way the ruthless repression of press freedom": Viktor Orbán is on the list of "enemies of press freedom" for the first time - and with him for the first time also an EU head of government.

The list published on Monday includes 37 heads of state and government.

In addition to Orbán, the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the Hong Kong Prime Minister Carrie Lam are new.

Since Orbán and his Fidesz party came to power in Hungary in 2010, they have gradually brought the media landscape under their control, said RSF.

The public broadcasters were centralized in a state media holding company.

The regional press has been wholly owned by Orbán-friendly entrepreneurs since 2017.

Important independent media have been switched off.

Hungary is also under political pressure in the EU.

The government has passed a law that prohibits children and young people from providing balanced information on issues such as homosexuality.

17 EU states, including Germany, protested against this in a joint letter.

EU Commission President Ursula der Leyen described it as a "shame".

The Commission is currently discussing how to respond to the Hungarian provocation.

One is checking all legal and other options, it is said in von der Leyen's surroundings.

Reporters Without Borders recorded most of the newcomers on the list of enemies of the press in the Asia-Pacific region, where 13 of the 37 listed heads of state alone rule.

The Hong Kong head of government Lam was added, among other things because in the Chinese special administrative region with the newspaper "Apple Daily" a symbol of the freedom of the press had to cease operations.

Brazilian President Bolsonaro is also on the list for the first time.

He insulted, denigrated and stigmatize critical journalists and above all rely on online networks to bypass traditional media, explained RSF.

One of the newcomers is the Saudi Crown Prince bin Salman, whom RSF accuses of crimes against humanity for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, among other things.

In Eastern Europe, RSF has counted the Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Belarusian head of state Alexander Lukashenko among the rigorous enemies of freedom of the press for more than 20 years.

Since Putin took office, at least 37 reporters have been murdered because of their work, and hardly any of these crimes have been solved.

In Belarus, Lukashenko brutally suppressed the free circulation of information, wrote RSF.

More than 500 journalists have been arrested since the protests against the government that began last summer and, in some cases, severely ill-treated in prison.

"New names have been added in all regions of the world," said RSF Managing Director Christian Mihr.

"Their methods of suppression are different, but they serve the same purpose: to prevent critical reporting at all costs." The list also includes many long-standing "enemies of press freedom".

They include Eritrea's President Isaias Afewerki, China's head of state and party leader Xi Jinping and Syria's ruler Bashar al-Assad.

kae / dpa