Category Archives: propaganda

June 27, 2022 By in 2019 European Parliament election, propaganda Leave a comment

I have not updated The Orange Files since moving away from Hungary several years ago. Some of the material on this website is therefore outdated. The date on which posts were published or last modified appears at the bottom of the given text. After a long hiatus, I will resume writing articles on Hungarian history, beginning with Hungarian People’s Republic I . . . 1949–1956, that provide context for understanding the motives—beyond the mere quest for power—that have impelled Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to build an illiberal authoritarian régime in Hungary. I will not add any other new material to The Orange Files or update any existing material on the website aside from the articles on the history of Hungary.   

—Sean Lambert  

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Campaign Caravan

May 26, 2019 By in 2019 European Parliament election, propaganda 1 Comment

The government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán conducted intensive propaganda in preparation for the Fidesz–Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP) campaign for the May 23–26 European Parliament (EP) election. The slogan of the propaganda campaign was “For us, Hungary is first!” (Nekünk Magyarország az első!).

The objective of these propaganda actions was to mobilize support for Fidesz-KDNP in the EP election by portraying the party alliance as the only political force in Hungary that would prevent the European Union from carrying through with its purported plan to resettle migrants in EU member states with help from Hungarian-American investor and philanthropist György/George Soros and his NGOs.

The Orbán-government propaganda focused on the threat that Muslim migration to Hungary would allegedly pose to the country’s internal security and Christian culture.

This preliminary propaganda consisted of eight distinctive actions that took place during a three-month period from early January to early April. Below are descriptions of each of these eight stages in the Orbán government’s preparation for the 2019 EP election campaign.

Stage 1: Request for Campaign Donations

click to enlarge

On January 3, Prime Minister Orbán sent letters to Fidesz-KDNP supporters throughout Hungary requesting donations to help the party alliance finance its political campaign for the EP election (source in Hungarian).

Fidesz-KDNP has not revealed how money Prime Minister Orbán’s request for donations generated for the party alliance’s 2019 EP election campaign.

Below is an Orange Files translation of Prime Minister Orbán’s 2019 request for donations:

Esteemed Compatriots!

I am writing to You because we are standing before a historically significant European Parliament election. This March, the stakes will be higher than they have ever been before.

See entire post.

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The Umpteenth Campaign

March 4, 2019 By in propaganda Leave a comment

On February 15, 2019, Spokesman István Hollik announced that the Orbán government would launch an “information action regarding the plans in Brussels to encourage immigration because we think that all Hungarian people have the right to know about those proposals that fundamentally threaten Hungary’s security” (sources A and B in Hungarian).

The Signs

(photo: Orange Files)

A few days later, signs showing unflattering images of Hungarian-American financier György/George Soros and European Commission (EC) President Jean-Claude Juncker alongside the text “You Also Have the Right to Know What Brussels Is Preparing to Do!” (Önnek is joga van tudni, mire készül Brüsszel!) appeared in large number on the streets of Budapest.

See entire post.

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Pre-Election Sampler from the Freesheets

April 7, 2018 By in 2018 National Assembly Election, Fidesz, propaganda Leave a comment

Below are scanned images from the final two issues of the free daily newspaper Lokál and the final issue of the free weekly newspaper Lokál Extra published before the April 8 National Assembly election in Hungary.

The 12-page Lokál has a daily circulation of 150,000 copies and is distributed at public-transportation, railway and inter-city bus stations in Budapest. The 24-page Lokál Extra has a circulation of 1,160,000 copies and is delivered to homes and residential buildings in Budapest and 24 other cities in Hungary (source in Hungarian).

The newspapers operate under the ownership of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s chief strategic adviser Árpád Habony and former legal adviser Tibor Győri.

See entire post.

Lokál, April 5 and April 6, page 2

 Orbán government campaign advertisement showing a stop sign superimposed on a dense column of migrants marching through the countryside somewhere along the Balkan migration route in 2015.

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Orbán Gov’t and Party Campaign Signs

March 11, 2018 By in 2018 general election, Fidesz, Orbán, propaganda, Szijjártó Leave a comment

Above are Orange Files photos of the two main 2018 election campaign signs (click to enlarge) of the Viktor Orbán–led government of Hungary and Fidesz political party. They currently appear in large number on billboards, advertising columns and bus-stop shelters throughout Budapest (and presumably all of Hungary).

The sign at left is that of the government of Hungary. It reads:

The UN wants us to continuously receive immigrants.

HUNGARY DECIDES, NOT THE UN!

See entire post.

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Referendum Homestretch on Hungarian Television

October 6, 2016 By in 2016 migrant-quota referendum, European migrant crisis, Hungarian Television, propaganda Leave a comment

Below are screenshots taken from programs broadcast on the M1 news channel of state-run Hungarian Television from 3:00 p.m. until 6:30 p.m. on October 2, 2016—that is, until half an hour before the closing of polls in Hungary’s referendum on European Union migrant-resettlement quotas (see Hungary’s 2016 Referendum on European Union Migrant Resettlement Quotas and The Referendum That Couldn’t Fail).

Aside from intermittent weather bulletins and a report on the new leadership of the U.K. Labour Party, newscasts and programs broadcast on M1 during this three-and-a-half-hour period dealt with just two issues—the referendum results and migration.

The screenshots are from the various reports on migration. Note that in 2013, the National Assembly approved an amendment to Hungary’s electoral laws that eliminated campaign silence (source in Hungarian).

See entire post.

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Slaying the Gentle Giant

January 17, 2016 By in European migrant crisis, Migration Aid, propaganda Leave a comment

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Orange Files photograph of Baba that ripost.hu used without citing the source. 

On January 11, 2016, the on-line tabloid ripost.hu published an article entitled “Serial Criminal Ex-Convict at the Head of Soros’s Hungarian Migrant Organization!” (Börtönviselt, sokszoros bűnöző Soros magyar migráns­szervezetének élén!) regarding Baba, the most prominent volunteer for the Migration Aid non-governmental organization that provided food, clothing and other forms of assistance to tens of thousands of migrants as they passed through Hungary on their way to Germany in the summer and early autumn of 2015 (source in Hungarian).

The ripost.hu article claimed that Migration Aid, which started as a Facebook group in June 2015, was part of a “well developed Soros migrant-assistance network” that “following its establishment immediately received support from the Budapest Soros Foundation.”

The article used the following terms and phrases to describe Baba, an enormous man whom Western media such as The Guardian and the Associated Press dubbed the “Gentle Giant”: “refined criminal”; “serious criminal”; “dyed-in-the-wool swindler”; and “criminal well-known in the underworld.”

See entire post.

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The Röszke Telephones

October 10, 2015 By in European migrant crisis, Hungarian Television, propaganda Leave a comment

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“Shocking images on abandoned telephones”: Hungarian Television shows its anonymous source (Orange Files screenshot).

On October 9, 2015, state-run Hungarian Television broadcast a report on images and videos allegedly found on telephones that migrants discarded after crossing into Hungary near the village of Röszke along the Hungarian-Serbian border earlier this year. Hungarian Television reported three days previously that it had received the telephones containing the images from an anonymous resident of Röszke who had “helped the authorities as a civilian volunteer in their work at the border” (source in Hungarian from 7:54).

The October 9 Hungarian Television report is typical of those that Hungary’s state-run media has broadcast regarding the Great Migration regularly over the past few months in order to support the Orbán government’s contention that migrants represent a grave immediate threat to the security of Hungary and all of Europe.

See entire post.

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Making Politics of Migration: the Civil Cooperation Forum Signs

October 6, 2015 By in Civil Cooperation Forum, European migrant crisis, photo gallery, propaganda Leave a comment

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“A happy, festive crowd has arrived to Hungary”      (photo: Orange Files).

On October 5, 2015, the pro-government political organization Civil Cooperation Forum (Civil Összefogás Fórum, or CÖF) erected twelve signs at a park near the Hungarian Parliament Building in Budapest juxtaposing images of opposition political officials and aggressive or seemingly aggressive migrants (see CÖF website in Hungarian).

The signs also display migration-related quotes which the depicted democratic opposition officials have made over the past few months and which radical-nationalist Jobbik President Gábor Vona—who supports the Orbán government’s current migration policy—made during the previous parliamentary cycle.

See entire post.

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Orbán Government Notable Quotes: October 1–2, 2015

October 2, 2015 By in European migrant crisis, Lázár, Orbán, propaganda Leave a comment

Prime Ministry Chief János Lázár:

“They regularly find people [migrants] infected with syphilis, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV as well.” October 1, 2015, speaking about the migration crisis during his regular Thursday press conference (source in Hungarian).

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán:

“Eighty percent of the immigrants are young men. They resemble an army more than they do asylum-seekers. They are uneducated, the majority of them speak only Arabic.” October 2, 2015, speaking on pro-government Kossuth Radio (source in Hungarian).

“Let’s not regard what the Croatian prime minister says as the opinion of the Croatian people. The Croatian prime minister and his party are the representatives of the Socialist International whose job it is to attack Hungary.” October 2, 2015, speaking on pro-government Kossuth Radio in reference to tension between the governments of Hungary and Croatia over the migration crisis (source in Hungarian).

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán during October 2, 2015 interview on Kossuth Radio (photo: index.hu)

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán during October 2, 2015 interview on Kossuth Radio (photo: index.hu)

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