“Fidesz continues to harass news media that are not under its control. In June, parliament adopted a law that reinforces the government’s repressive arsenal by taxing media income from advertising. It was clearly designed to silence RTL Klub, a TV station that has repeatedly criticized the government.”

In 2006 Hungary was ranked 10 out of 161 in terms of press freedom. By 2009 Hungary’s ranking had fallen to 25th out of 170.

After being ranked 56th out of 178 in 2012 and 2013, Hungary ranking fell eight places to 64 out of 180 in 2014 with a Press Freedom score of 26.73.

According to the 2014 World Press Freedom Index Hungary currently ranks 65 out of 180 with a total Press Freedom score of 27.44, which ranks it ahead of Bosnia Hercegovina and Serbia but behind the Dominican Republic and Madagascar.

According to Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Barometer, a total of 69 journalists were killed worldwide in 2014. So far in 2015 13 journalists have been killed and 164 journalists have been imprisoned.

Top of the list are Finland, which has been in first place for five years in succession, followed by Norway and Denmark.

At the other end of the scale, Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea, in last place, were the worst performers.

France is ranked 38th (up one place), the United States 49th (down three places), Japan 61st (down two places), Brazil 99 (up 12 places), Russia 152 (down four places), Iran 173rd (unchanged) and China 176th (down one place).

The good news it that no journalists are known to have been killed or imprisoned in Hungary since Reporters Without Borders started publishing the annual World Press Freedom Index in 2002.

Source: The Budapest Beacon

The Budapest Beacon is a media partner of XpatLoop.com