Autocrats roll back rights and rule of law — and cite Trump's example

Boston Globe

23-03-2025

Gergely Gulyas, Orban's chief of staff, told journalists that the change in administrations in Washington had lifted the 'American boot' off the chest of the Hungarian government, making it easier 'to breathe.'
Orban himself noted that the Biden administration's ambassador to Hungary - David Pressman, a fierce Orban critic who directly challenged the nationalist leader's democratic backsliding - made a point of participating in Budapest Pride, an event that has brought 35,000 people to the Hungarian capital, to protect it.
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Pride 'shouldn't have existed earlier, but it did, because the U.S. Ambassador led the march, which clearly showed that the world's great powers supported it,' Orban said last month. 'But now the world has changed, and the Americans have called these types of ambassadors back home. … It's clear that [Pride] won't have international protection.'
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The emboldened Orban is not alone. As Trump upends democratic norms at home, his statements, policies and actions are providing cover for a fresh chill on freedom of expression, democracy, the rule of law and LGBTQ+ rights for autocrats around the world - some of whom are giving him credit.
Democratic backsliding in Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Turkey long predates Trump; the president has been said to have derived some of his messaging from Orban. But in several nations, including Hungary and Serbia, authorities say openly that Trump's return has helped them serve up what critics say are fresh violations of basic rights. In Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan this week detained his leading political rival and dozens of others, advocates see Trump's influence as an enabling factor.
The new Trump administration 'is bringing together autocrats and would-be autocrats around the world,' said Rosa Balfour, director of Carnegie Europe. 'What they share is a radical right agenda, and they are much more connected in their policies and goals than we have been assuming.'
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Cuts at USAID have eliminated funding for nongovernmental organizations that promoted the rule of law in countries where democracy is under attack, she said. Meanwhile, the administration's actions at home - rolling back protections for minorities, the mass deportation of migrants outside normal processes, attacks on judges who stand in the way - and its decision to vote against a United Nations censure of Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, she said, signal a new era in which the United States is no longer seen as a global defender of liberal democracy.
For Orban, opponents fear, the ban on Pride is only the starting point. Last week, he announced a 'spring cleaning' against opposition politicians, judges, journalists, civil society organizations and activists - a group he collectively described as society's 'stink bugs.'
'In terms of international pressure, Orban is now liberated,' said Márton Tompos, president of the opposition Momentum Movement. 'It's like he's saying, 'Okay, Trump won, and now I can do anything I want.''
In Serbia, where autocratic President Aleksandar Vucic has been challenged by a sustained protest movement, authorities cited Trump's unsubstantiated claims of rampant fraud, corruption and waste at USAID as a basis for launching raids last month against four civil society groups, including one that monitors elections and one that promotes government accountability and transparency.
The International Fact-Checking Network, a program of the Florida-based Poynter Institute, called the raids 'an unprecedented escalation of government repression, meant to silence independent voices and using the pretext of baseless accusations from the current U.S. administration for the suppression of independent media.'
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Donald Trump Jr., interviewing Vucic this month, praised Serbia for 'embracing the MAGA movement,' and echoed Vucic's unproven claim that anti-corruption protests were tied to 'left-wing actors' in the U.S.
Erdogan has targeted political rivals, judges and journalists for years. But the arrest this month of nearly 100 people, including Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, his strongest political challenger, on corruption charges opponents call specious, was an escalation.
Erdogan, critics say, is also laying the ground work for a fresh assault on minority rights. Kerem Dikmen, a Human Rights Program Coordinator at Kaos GL, a Turkish LGBTQ+ group, said the organization has obtained a draft of a bill that would impose sentences of up to three years on individuals who do not behave in public according to their biological sex. It would also make it a crime to officiate same-sex weddings, Dikmen said.
The target isn't new. Istanbul's Pride march has been banned since 2015, and Erdogan has described himself as 'against LGBT.'
'Those in Turkey are not passing a law because Trump is in power. But there is a psychological influence,' Dikmen said. 'It will become easier.'
The Biden administration clashed bitterly with Orban, an ally of both Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has sought to establish what he calls an 'illiberal state' in Hungary. Since coming to power 15 years ago, Orban has undermined judicial independence and sought to control the media while targeting migrants and the LGBTQ+ community.
The 2021 antigay propaganda law stoked fear in Hungary's LGBTQ+ community. Lawmakers followed it in 2023 with a proposal to allow citizens to report same-sex couples with children anonymously.
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That bill, however, was never signed - the result, Pressman told The Washington Post, of public and private pressure by U.S. and European officials. In the final weeks of the Biden administration, the U.S. also sanctioned a top Orban aide for alleged corruption in office.
'Look, when you're dealing with an emerging authoritarian government, part of the effort of diplomacy is to create guardrails,' said Pressman, who left his post as ambassador in January. 'I think there is a very fair question as to whether or not those guardrails still exist. And some of the policy decisions you see, I think, are reflecting that.'
The ban on Pride affects far more than one event, critics say. It allows fines of up to roughly $550 for any protest or gathering authorities deem a danger to children.
A convergence of challenges - an anemic economy, high inflation and flagging poll numbers - have left Orban vulnerable to a surging challenge by former ally Péter Magyar. Organizers of Budapest Pride see the renewed harassment of the LGBTQ+ community in part as an effort to direct attention toward a scapegoat.
Orban said Pride participants would not be arrested but fined. Mate Hegedus, a spokesman for Budapest Pride, said the June 28 event will go ahead as planned. By happenstance, he said, it will coincide with the anniversary of the Stonewall riots, the Greenwich Village uprising in 1969 that gave lift to the modern gay rights movement in the U.S.
'After this, anyone can be silenced,' Hegedus said. 'We're not going to stand for this. We will go on with the event.'
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Orban's vows to expand his net to include judges, journalists, NGOs and others have also rattled the country. Orban has acted against opponents in the past, said David Vig, executive director of Amnesty International in Hungary. But Trump's action against USAID, he said, seemed to serve as a 'trigger' for a 'very significant change in tone.'
'The prime minister has said he wants to wipe out these organizations by Easter [and] the smearing, the chilling effect is already there,' Vig said. 'If a prime minister is talking about civil society, talking about journalists, and judges, as bugs who need to be killed and wiped out, I think that is sending a very clear chilling message.'
Karoly Szilagyi in Budapest and Stefano Pitrelli in Rome contributed to this report.