Hungary's Orban a Press 'Predator,' Media Watchdog Says
Voice of America
A press watchdog group, Reporters Without Borders, named 37 world leaders Monday as media “predators” who “crack down massively” on press freedom, including for the first time a Western European leader, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
The Paris-based group, in its first such list in five years, included two women, Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh's prime minister since 2009, and Carrie Lam, chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region since 2017. Reporters Without Borders said the “most notable” name on the new list “is undoubtedly Saudi Arabia’s 35-year-old crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who is the center of all power in his hands and heads a monarchy that tolerates no press freedom. His repressive methods include spying and threats that have sometimes led to abduction, torture and other unthinkable acts. [Journalist] Jamal Khashoggi’s horrific murder exposed a predatory method that is simply barbaric.” The group said the officials it cited all “trample on press freedom by creating a censorship apparatus, jailing journalists arbitrarily or inciting violence against them, when they don’t have blood on their hands because they have directly or indirectly pushed for journalists to be murdered.”Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. Fire rages following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still picture taken from a video, May 26, 2024. Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. A member of the bomb squad of the Israeli police collects debris after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants struck in the Israeli city of Herzliya on May 26, 2024.