1UA TV

Russian President Vladimir Putin has set July 1 as the date for the national vote on constitutional amendments that among other things would allow him to remain in power until 2036.Putin announced the decision at a meeting with co-chairs of the working group on the preparation of the bill on June 1.Ella Pamfilova, the chairwoman of the Central Election Committee, said she supports the idea, adding that the voting will start seven days prior the official date in order to avoid large crowds.Pamfilova also said that in two or three regions an electronic voting system will be used, though she did not say which regions.The bill of constitutional amendments was approved by lawmakers and approved by the Constitutional Court in March.It was expected to be put to a national referendum on April 22, but due to the coronavirus outbreak, the national vote was postponed.Putin’s critics have said that he initiated the amendments to secure power for another 12 years after his current term ends in 2024 by resetting his previous presidential term count back to zero.The move has sparked protests in Russian cities and towns.Putin’s current term, his second consecutive six-year term, began in 2018. The existing constitution prohibits presidents from serving more than two consecutive terms, but the amendments would enable him to seek a fifth overall presidential term in 2024, and conceivably a sixth in 2030.Final approval of the changes will come if more than half of the country’s voters support them in the nationwide vote.Putin, a 67-year old former KGB officer, has ruled Russia as president or prime minister for more than 20 years. 
…

Protests have erupted in cities across the world in solidarity with the ‘Black Lives Matter’ demonstrations in the United States. The protests follow the death in police custody of George Floyd, a 46-year old black man, in Minneapolis last week. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, many protestors outside the U.S. say they see racial injustice in their own countries.
Camera: Henry Ridgwell   Producer: Marcus Harton
…

When the coronavirus pandemic came to Hungary in March, media freedom in the country was already on life support. The consolidation of news organizations into the hands of a few government allies, and financial pressure placed on independent outlets, had led to a degree of media control described by Reporters Without Borders as “unprecedented” in the European Union.
 
News outlets globally are adapting to restrictions and regulations imposed under the pandemic, but Hungary’s measures were condemned internationally for lacking a timeline and for their invasiveness.  A package of pandemic-related laws passed by the Hungarian Parliament March 30 gave the government power to rule by decree indefinitely, bypassing normal parliamentary procedures. Some fear the laws, known as the Authorization Act, could be used to silence critical media.Among other things, the act allows prison terms of one to five years for those who “spread falsehoods or distorted facts” that could alarm the public. Distributing information that “inhibits the successful defense” against the pandemic is also punishable by five-year prison terms. 
 
While the measures are temporary, the government will be able to apply the extended false news laws under future states of emergency.
 
The EU, which has repeatedly criticized Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s attempts to tighten control on the media and judiciary, condemned the act as “incompatible with European values,” and the broad language in the emergency measures caused concern over their potential scope.
 
“It is a definite risk that a kind of chilling effect will appear in the Hungarian media and self-censorship will occur,” said Ágnes Urbán, an associate professor at Corvinus University in Budapest and media researcher at Mérték Media Monitor, a Hungarian nongovernmental organization. “Even true facts can be subject to provisions of the law if the government deems that they do not support its efforts to fight the pandemic.”
 
While a thirst for information about the pandemic has led to a surge in readership for some independent outlets, several pro-government news outlets and prominent media personalities called for journalists to be arrested for their coverage even before the passage of measures on fake news.
 
In an interview on the pro-government Hír TV, one journalist suggested the time had come to “put a muzzle on certain parts of the press,” while another wondered when Szabolcs Dull, editor-in-chief of Hungary’s largest online news site, Index, would be “locked up.”
 
“The government-tied media was constantly attacking Index, saying that we were spreading fake news, and it shocked and outraged us. We weren’t spreading fake news, but reporting on facts which we considered important,” Dull told VOA News.Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban speaks to journalists at a polling station in Budapest, Oct. 13, 2019, after he cast his vote in local elections.In April, the website of the Hungarian public broadcaster’s news program Híradó launched an online “fake news monitor” to debunk false statements about the coronavirus pandemic. Many of the items featured come from opposition politicians or articles by government-critical news organizations.
 
Századvég, a conservative think tank often commissioned by the government and Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party to conduct polling and research, publishes its own list of so-called fake news, including articles from critical media and Facebook posts from opposition politicians.
 
The site contested a claim by weekly magazine 168 Óra that Hungary’s COVID-19 death-to-infection rate was exceptionally high by using a different metric than 168 Óra to measure deaths. The think tank also listed the Hungarian Academy of Science’s recommendation for broad testing as “fake news.”
 
Urbán, the media researcher, says messages portraying independent outlets as purveyors of fake news “legitimize anti-democratic actions that should not be allowed.”
 
“The legitimate goal [of countering fake news] is being confused with incitement against journalists and opposition politicians, which is terribly dangerous,” she said. “[The pro-government media] are very clearly conflating crazy fake news allegations made on Facebook with the news printed by the independent media that the government doesn’t really like.”
 
Editor-in-chief of the pro-government website Pesti Srácok, Gergely Huth, who said on Hír TV that those spreading fake news will have to be “placed in police cars and taken away,” told VOA that his words had been distorted, and that “it would not even occur to any sane person to arrest any journalist or subject them to any criminal sanctions.”
 
“We were talking about the operators of the fake news factories that proliferated on the internet and on Facebook, who … tried to incite the fear of death in people using fake news during the pandemic,” Huth said.  
 
Prior to the introduction of the controversial fake news provisions, Hungary’s critical media were already marginalized after years of pro-government allies taking over major outlets and consolidating media holdings into powerful conglomerates.
 
The editor-in-chief of Hungary’s then-largest online news site Origo was dismissed in 2014, allegedly under political pressure, and more than 30 Origo journalists later resigned over what they said was a pro-government shift in editorial content. Hungary’s leading daily newspaper, the left-leaning Népszabadság, was suddenly shuttered in 2016 after being FILE – Journalists of the newspaper Nepszabadsag, which was shut down amid cries of a crackdown by Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government, paste a copy of its last issue onto a glass wall in a makeshift newsroom in Budapest, Hungary, Oct. 10, 2016.And in 2018, hundreds of Hungary’s pro-government outlets were simultaneously donated by their owners to the Central European Press and Media Foundation (KESMA), a media conglomerate run by people with close ties to Orbán and Fidesz. The 476 outlets account for 40% of all news and public affairs revenues in Hungary’s media market, according to Mérték Media Monitor.  
 
Hungary’s competition authority launched an investigation into the merger but dropped its inquiry after Orbán declared KESMA to be “of national strategic importance,” exempting it from the authority’s purview.
 Scared into silenceWhile some journalists say they do not believe the fake news laws will be used to jail reporters, uncertainty over what qualifies as a crime and the threat of mere accusations could lead to self-censorship.
 
“That law was not aimed at professional journalists, reporters and newsmakers, but was made to intimidate regular people,” said Péter Erdélyi, senior editor and reporter for news portal 444. “Exactly the kind of people that got taken away by police last week.”
 
On May 12, police detained a 64-year-old man near Szerencs on suspicion of fear-mongering over a Facebook post that criticized the government’s handling of the pandemic and called Orbán “a cruel tyrant.” Prosecutors found no crime.
 
The following day, a member of the opposition party Momentum was taken into custody on accusations of “obstructing efforts to combat the pandemic” over a social media post that was later found to be true, according to reports. He also was released without charge.
 
Nearly 100 criminal proceedings have been launched for spreading false news that could alarm.  
 
Such arrests, coupled with frequent televised reminders by Hungary’s coronavirus emergency task force to be mindful of what is shared online, are leading to an atmosphere of intimidation that makes it difficult for journalists to obtain information, Erdélyi said.
 
“It affects sources a great deal. Even people who used to talk to us won’t talk to us anymore because they’re intimidated. It’s a whole atmosphere,” Erdélyi said.
 
Obtaining information of even a nonpolitical nature has become more difficult as potential sources stay quiet, said Dull, of Index. Medical experts “who could give relevant data about the pandemic” are being told not to speak to the media, forcing them to provide anonymous information which the government then brands as “fake news,” he said.  
 
Journalists have also struggled to obtain information from official sources. At its daily virtual news conferences, the emergency task force answers questions emailed in advance, with no opportunity for follow-up questions.FILE – Journalists wait for the start of a news conference by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Russian President Vladimir Putin, in Budapest, Hungary, Feb. 2, 2017.Independent journalists complain that the task force responds to more questions from pro-government media outlets and that questions from some journalists are rarely addressed.
 
In April, the weekly magazine Magyar Narancs published 15 questions it had been submitting to the emergency task force for weeks with no reply.  
 
A spokesperson for the government told VOA by email that the emergency task force receives many questions each day, which are pooled by topic. The spokesperson did not comment on how the task force decides which questions to answer.  
 
A government decree has also extended from 15 to 45 days the deadline for state institutions to respond to Freedom of Information requests for public records if answering the requests “would endanger public tasks related to the emergency.” For larger data sets, the deadline can be extended to 90 days.
 
“Accessing public information was already a slow process before the epidemic, and with the extended deadline for public information requests, it’s possible that you’ll only receive answers in three months when the whole epidemic might already be over and the information might have completely lost its relevance,” said Blanka Zöldi, a journalist with the nonprofit investigative journalism center Direkt36.
 
“Journalists are getting stripped of the possibility to share public information and data in a timely manner, when people are actually interested in them,” Zöldi said.
 
Despite these challenges, readership at independent outlets has jumped significantly. Internal figures at Index show daily readership jumped from around 1.5 million to 2 million per day, around one-fifth of the country’s population, while page views have grown by millions.  
 
“However much the government media says that we’re fake news and shouldn’t be believed, we’ve seen that people are reading us the most. Our readership has grown radically,” Dull said, adding he has found that Index’s online broadcasts of the daily emergency task force briefings were sometimes viewed at 10 times the rate of the same briefings on the government’s webpage.
 
“It shows that people are turning to the medium that they believe,” he said.
 
In March and April, reader donations drastically increased at 444, which provides its content for free. But Erdélyi says the increase in support has not been enough to offset losses in digital ad revenue, which makes up the majority of the site’s income.  
 
“The economic crisis is just setting in, and our readers are not immune to it. If you lose your job or a significant part of your income, are you still going to support the newspaper that you like?” he said.
 
Hungary’s justice minister has said the measures will be lifted next month, but legal observers say a bill recently submitted to Parliament on ending the special legal order would again indefinitely authorize the government to extra-parliamentary rule.  
 
Some provisions in the act, including laws on spreading news that may cause alarm, will remain on the books for use under future state of emergency measures.
 
In any case, the lifting of the special legal order will not mean the end of the independent media’s difficulties.   
 
Before the pandemic, critical outlets struggled to survive on advertising revenues, taking little benefit from the millions the government spent on advertising in select media. In 2017, nearly 88% of total ad revenues for Fidesz-tied daily Magyar Idők came from ads paid for by the government, while the centrist Magyar Nemzet received less than 3% of its ad revenue from the government that year.
 
Media researcher Urbán says that the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic could pose an existential danger to Hungary’s already delicate environment for independent media.  
 
“No one knows how they can survive in the next months and years. I can imagine that the current independent news portals will simply disappear in a few months. These media companies are extremely vulnerable right now.” 
…

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced Monday he and his family tested positive for the coronavirus, which causes the COVID-19 disease.In a videotaped statement posted on his Facebook account, Pashinyan said he had not developed any symptoms, but he had taken the test as a precaution before a planned visit to military positions in the country.  Pashinyan said he would continue working from home.  The Johns Hopkins University, as of early Monday, reports Armenia has close to 9,500 confirmed cases of the virus and 139 deaths among its population of almost three million people.  Armenian authorities declared a state of emergency in mid-March.
 
…

The shocking on-camera death of African American George Floyd is drawing attention around the globe.Anti-U.S. protests deploring the man’s death erupted in Western capitals on Sunday and newspaper headlines heaped scorn on American police over the incident last week in Minneapolis.Floyd, a black man, died after white police officer Derek Chauvin pressed a knee on the back of his neck for more than eight minutes, even as Floyd repeatedly said he could not breathe. The incident was captured on video.Thousands of protesters gathered in central London to voice support for American demonstrators who have marched in dozens of U.S. cities over the last five days to condemn the police conduct. Some of the worst U.S. violence in decades has erupted, with police cars and government buildings set afire, stores ransacked and looted, and public monuments defaced.The British protesters chanted, “No justice! No peace!” and waved placards with the words, “How many more?”People protest in Berlin, Germany, May 31, 2020 after the violent death of the African-American George Floyd by a white policeman in the USA against racism and police violence, among other things with a sign “Who do call when police murders”.Denmark, Germany
Protesters in Denmark marched to the U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen, carrying placards with such messages as “Stop Killing Black People.” In Germany, protesters carried signs saying, “Hold Cops Accountable,” and “Who Do You Call When Police Murder?”Germany’s top-selling Bild newspaper carried a provocative Sunday headline: “This killer-cop set America ablaze” with an arrow pointing to a photo of Chauvin, who has been fired and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in Floyd’s death.In some newspapers, Floyd’s death and the ensuing American protests have pushed news of the ongoing worldwide fight against the coronavirus pandemic to second-tier status, at least for the moment.  Authoritarian regime perspective
In countries with authoritarian governments, state-controlled media showcased the demonstrations in the context of U.S. government complaints about crackdowns on protesters in other countries, such as China’s treatment of pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong.Hu Xijin, the editor of the Chinese Communist Party-run Global Times newspaper, said U.S. officials can now see the protests out of their own windows: “I want to ask [House] Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi and Secretary [of State Mike] Pompeo: Should Beijing support protests in the U.S., like you glorified rioters in Hong Kong?”Iranian state television has shown frequent images of the U.S. unrest, with one unsubstantiated report accusing U.S. police agencies in Washington of “setting fire to cars and attacking protesters.”Russia said Floyd’s death was an example of U.S. police violence against African-Americans and accused the U.S. of “systemic problems in the human rights sphere.””This incident is far from the first in a series of lawless conduct and unjustified violence from U.S. law enforcement,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “American police commit such high-profile crimes all too often.”  Lebanon
Lebanese anti-government protesters flooded social media with tweets supporting U.S. protesters, with the hashtag #Americanrevolts becoming the top trending tag in Lebanon.
…