'Like Orwell and Kafka' New office homes in on Fidesz critics

As leaders across Europe fume over Viktor Orbán's unsanctioned foreign policy adventures, the far-right Hungarian leader has intensified his campaign against independent voices at home, increasing pressure on media outlets and civil society groups that do not toe the government line.

- Lili Bayer

The prime minister's meetings in recent weeks with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, China's leader Xi Jinping and the US presidential candidate Donald Trump have stoked controversy in diplomatic circles, at a time when Hungary is formally holding the Council of the European Union's rotating presidency.

Getting far less attention abroad, however, has been a flurry of activity inside Hungary targeting independent journalism and watchdog groups. At the centre is the country's controversial new sovereignty protection office.

Led by a figure with close links to the ruling Fidesz party and granted the power to draw upon the intelligence services without judicial oversight, the office was set up by Orbán's government, formally to monitor foreign influence. But in practice, critics say, it is serving as a tool to apply pressure on government critics.

"The whole thing is so absurd that I would put it between Orwell and Kafka somewhere," said József Péter Martin, the executive director of Transparency International Hungary, one of the organisations under investigation by the sovereignty protection office.