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The Guardian
6 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Hungary postpones vote on law to curb foreign-funded organisations
Hungary's ruling party has postponed a planned vote on draft legislation aimed at organisations that receive foreign funding, following weeks of protests and warnings that the law would 'starve and strangle' civil society and independent media. Viktor Orbán's rightwing populist party, Fidesz, put forward legislation last month that would allow the government to monitor, penalise and potentially ban organisations that receive any sort of foreign funding, including donations or EU grants. Any organisation could be targeted if it was deemed to 'threaten the sovereignty of Hungary by using foreign funding to influence public life'. The parliamentary vote had been expected to take place in mid-June. Despite critics likening the legislation to Russia's 'foreign agent' law, it was forecast to be passed by parliament as Fidesz holds a two-thirds majority. But on Wednesday, Fidesz' parliamentary party leader, Mâté Kocsis, told local media that the vote would be postponed until autumn as the government had received several suggestions regarding the law. 'We are united in our intentions, but there is still debate about the means,' he added on social media. Civil rights organisations celebrated the delay, with Amnesty International calling it a 'huge joint success'. 'Of course, we can only rest easy once this unlawful bill has been scrapped for good,' the group said on social media. 'Unfortunately, one thing is certain: the government will not give up its attempts to silence independent voices, as has been its goal since 2010.' Previously, Zoltán Kovács, a spokesperson for the Hungarian government, had said the bill had been introduced amid worries that foreign-funded organisations, primarily from the US and Brussels, were shaping the country's political discourse. The legislation takes a broad view of what constitutes a threat, describing it as acts undermining Hungary's constitutional identity or Christian culture or challenging the primacy of marriage, the family and biological sexes. The proposal was swiftly slammed by opposition politicians, who said it would allow the government to potentially shut down all independent media and NGOs engaged in public affairs, while Transparency International described it as a 'dark turning point' for Hungary. 'It is designed to crush dissent, silence civil society, and dismantle the pillars of democracy,' the organisation noted. The warning was echoed by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee. 'If this bill passes, it will not simply marginalise Hungary's independent voices – it will extinguish them,' co-chair Márta Pardavi said in a statement that described the draft law as 'Operation Starve and Strangle'. Scores of Hungarians took to the streets in protest while more than 90 editors-in-chief and publishers from across Europe, including from the Guardian, Libération in France and Gazeta Wyborcza in Poland, called on the EU to take action. Sign up to Headlines Europe A digest of the morning's main headlines from the Europe edition emailed direct to you every week day after newsletter promotion The bill pushed by Orbán – who is facing an unprecedented challenge from a former member of the Fidesz elite, Péter Magyar, ahead of elections next spring – has been described as one of his government's boldest to date. 'Its aim is to silence all critical voices and eliminate what remains of Hungarian democracy once and for all,' a joint statement, signed by more than 300 civil society and media organisations, recently noted. Magyar was quick to respond to the delayed vote, saying on social media that it would allow the government to 'squeeze even more' out of the proposed bill and 'further divert attention from … the livelihood and housing crisis, Orbán's galloping inflation and the destruction of education'. The introduction of the draft law in Hungary's parliament had marked an 'escalation' in the government's years of democratic backsliding, said Veronika Móra, the director of the Ökotárs-Hungarian Environmental Partnership Foundation. Many in the country's steadily shrinking civic space had been left rattled by the proposed law and reeling from the uncertainty of what comes next. 'And we've already felt the chilling effects, especially smaller, weaker organisations who were really frightened by the draft law and the potential consequences,' she said. 'So even if it's not passed – which would be great – it's already had an impact.'
Al Jazeera
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Reporting from behind shifting front lines in Myanmar's civil war
On a typical day, Mai Rupa travels through his native Shan State, in eastern Myanmar, documenting the impact of war. A video journalist with the online news outlet Shwe Phee Myay, he travels to remote towns and villages, collecting footage and conducting interviews on stories ranging from battle updates to the situation for local civilians living in a war zone. His job is fraught with risks. Roads are strewn with landmines and there are times when he has taken cover from aerial bombing and artillery shelling. 'I have witnessed countless people being injured and civilians dying in front of me,' Mai Rupa said. 'These heartbreaking experiences deeply affected me,' he told Al Jazeera, 'at times, leading to serious emotional distress.' Mai Rupa is one of a small number of brave, independent journalists still reporting on the ground in Myanmar, where a 2021 military coup shattered the country's fragile transition to democracy and obliterated media freedoms. Like his colleagues at Shwe Phee Myay – a name which refers to Shan State's rich history of tea cultivation – Mai Rupa prefers to go by a pen name due to the risks of publicly identifying as a reporter with one of the last remaining independent media outlets still operating inside the country. Most journalists fled Myanmar in the aftermath of the military's takeover and the expanding civil war. Some continue their coverage by making cross-border trips from work bases in neighbouring Thailand and India. But staff at Shwe Phee Myay – a Burmese-language outlet, with roots in Shan State's ethnic Ta'ang community – continue reporting from on the ground, covering a region of Myanmar where several ethnic armed groups have for decades fought against the military and at times clashed with each other. After Myanmar's military launched a coup in February 2021, Shwe Phee Myay's journalists faced new risks. In March that year, two reporters with the outlet narrowly escaped arrest while covering pro-democracy protests. When soldiers and police raided their office in the Shan State capital of Lashio two months later, the entire team had already gone into hiding. That September, the military arrested the organisation's video reporter, Lway M Phuong, for alleged incitement and dissemination of 'false news'. She served nearly two years in prison. The rest of the 10-person Shwe Phee Myay team scattered following her arrest, which came amid the Myanmar military's wider crackdown on the media. Spread out across northern Shan State in the east of the country, the news team initially struggled to continue their work. They chose to avoid urban areas where they might encounter the military. Every day was a struggle to continue reporting. 'We couldn't travel on main roads, only back roads,' recounted Hlar Nyiem, an assistant editor with Shwe Phee Myay. 'Sometimes, we lost four or five work days in a week,' she said. Despite the dangers, Shwe Phee Myay's reporters continued with their clandestine work to keep the public informed. When a magnitude 7.7 earthquake hit central Myanmar on March 28, killing more than 3,800 people, Shwe Phee Myay's journalists were among the few able to document the aftermath from inside the country. The military blocked most international media outlets from accessing earthquake-affected areas, citing difficulties with travel and accommodation, and the few local reporters still working secretly in the country took great risks to get information to the outside world. 'These journalists continue to reveal truths and make people's voices heard that the military regime is desperate to silence,' said Thu Thu Aung, a public policy scholar at the University of Oxford who has conducted research on Myanmar's post-coup media landscape. On top of the civil war and threats posed by Myanmar's military regime, Myanmar's journalists have encountered a new threat. In January, the administration of US President Donald Trump and his billionaire confidante Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) began dismantling the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). USAID had allocated more than $268m towards supporting independent media and the free flow of information in more than 30 countries around the world – from Ukraine to Myanmar, according to journalism advocacy group Reporters Without Borders. In February, The Guardian reported on the freezing of USAID funds, creating an 'existential crisis' for exiled Myanmar journalists operating from the town of Mae Sot, on the country's border with Thailand. The situation worsened further in mid-March, when the White House declared plans for the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) to reduce operations to the bare minimum. USAGM oversees – among others – the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, which were both leading providers of news on Myanmar. Last week, RFA announced it was laying off 90 percent of its staff and ceasing to produce news in the Tibetan, Burmese, Uighur and Lao languages. VOA has faced a similar situation. Tin Tin Nyo, managing director of Burma News International, a network of 16 local, independent media organisations based inside and outside Myanmar, said the loss of the Burmese-language services provided by VOA and RFA created a 'troubling information vacuum'. Myanmar's independent media sector also relied heavily on international assistance, which had already been dwindling, Tin Tin Nyo said. Many local Myanmar news outlets were already 'struggling to continue producing reliable information', as a result of the USAID funding cuts brought in by Trump and executed by Musk's DOGE, she said. Some had laid off staff, reduced their programming or suspended operations. 'The downsizing of independent media has decreased the capacity to monitor [false] narratives, provide early warnings, and counter propaganda, ultimately weakening the pro-democracy movement,' Tin Tin Nyo said. 'When independent media fail to produce news, policymakers around the world will be unaware of the actual situation in Myanmar,' she added. Currently, 35 journalists remain imprisoned in Myanmar, making it the world's third-worst jailer of journalists after China and Israel, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The country is ranked 169th out of 180 countries on Reporters Without Borders' World Press Freedom Index. 'Journalists on the ground must work under the constant fear of arrest or even death,' Tin Tin Nyo said. 'The military junta treats the media and journalists as criminals, specifically targeting them to silence access to information.' Despite the dangers, Shwe Phee Myay continues to publish news on events inside Myanmar. With a million followers on Facebook – the digital platform where most people in Myanmar get their news – Shwe Phee Myay's coverage has become even more critical since the military coup in 2021 and the widening civil war. Established in 2019 in Lashio, Shwe Phee Myay was one of dozens of independent media outlets which emerged in Myanmar during a decade-long political opening, which began in 2011 with the country's emergence from a half-century of relative international isolation under authoritarian military rule. Pre-publication censorship ended in 2012 amid a wider set of policy reforms as the military agreed to allow greater political freedom. Journalists who had lived and worked in exile for media outlets such as the Democratic Voice of Burma, The Irrawaddy and Mizzima News began cautiously returning home. However, the country's nascent press freedoms came under strain during the term of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy government, which came to power in 2016 as a result of the military's political reforms. Aung San Suu Kyi's government jailed journalists and blocked independent media access to politically sensitive areas including Rakhine State, where the military committed a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya community and for which it now faces international charges of genocide. But the situation for independent journalists dramatically worsened following the 2021 coup. As the military violently cracked down on peaceful protests against the generals seizing power, it restricted the internet, revoked media licences and arrested dozens of journalists. That violence triggered an armed uprising across Myanmar. Shwe Phee Myay briefly considered relocating to Thailand as the situation deteriorated after the coup, but those running the news site decided to remain in the country. 'Our will was to stay on our own land,' said Mai Naw Dang, who until recently served as the editor of Burmese-to-English translations. 'Our perspective was that to gather the news and collect footage, we needed to be here.' Their work then took on new intensity in October 2023, when an alliance of ethnic armed organisations launched a surprise attack on military outposts in Shan State near the border with China. The offensive marked a major escalation in the Myanmar conflict; the military, which lost significant territory as a result, retaliated with air strikes, cluster munitions and shelling. Within two months, more than 500,000 people had been displaced due to the fighting. With few outside journalists able to access northern Shan State, Shwe Phee Myay was uniquely positioned to cover the crisis. Then in January this year, Shwe Phee Myay also received notice that USAID funds approved in November were no longer coming and it has since reduced field reporting, cancelled training and scaled back video news production. 'We're taking risks to report on how people are impacted by the war, yet our efforts seem unrecognised,' editor-in-chief Mai Rukaw said. 'Even though we have a strong human resource base on the ground, we're facing significant challenges in securing funding to continue our work.' During staff meetings, Mai Rukaw has raised the possibility of shutting down Shwe Phee Myay with his colleagues. Their response, he said, was to keep going even if the money dries up. 'We always ask ourselves: if we stop, who will continue addressing these issues?' he said. 'That question keeps us moving forward.'
Reuters
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Sweden donates $2 mln to Radio Free Europe after Trump freezes funding
STOCKHOLM, May 8 (Reuters) - Sweden will donate 20 million crowns ($2.1 million) to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Nordic country said on Thursday, after the administration of President Donald Trump ordered a freeze of federal grants to the media outlet. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was set up during the Cold War to reach people in communist-run states. The Prague-based outlet broadcasts to countries in Eastern Europe, including Russia and Ukraine. "This decision is part of our continued work to support journalists and independent media," the Swedish government said in a statement. "After the U.S. withdrew its support for Radio Free Europe, people in many countries risk losing access to free media," it said. President Trump in March ordered the termination of the grants as part of sweeping efforts to downsize the U.S. government, in what may devastate a rare source of reliable news in authoritarian countries. A U.S. District Court judge placed a temporary pause on the termination order but a federal appeals court this month blocked the ruling. ($1 = 9.6833 Swedish crowns)
