Thousands of protesters rally in Budapest against PM Orban after audio recording release

(27 Mar 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Budapest - 26 March 2024
1. Wide of former Hungarian government insider Peter Magyar clapping
2. Various of protesters
3. SOUNDBITE (Hungarian) Peter Magyar, former Hungarian government insider:
"Let's say it loud that nothing can go on the way it was before. Let’s tell the ruling power that the government must look into the eyes of the people and take political and legal responsibility for the mistakes they have made and even more so for the sins they have committed.”
4. Protesters
5. SOUNDBITE (Hungarian) Katalin Varga, demonstrator:
"Finally, there is a force, a character who represents what for me is the problem with the current situation: the political system, the abuses, and the fact that we are slowly cooking like frogs and not realizing that we are going to be the soup. And it is very timely to stop this.”
6. Wide of protest
7. Tilt-down from a Hungarian flag to Magyar singing with people
STORYLINE:
Thousands of demonstrators gathered in Budapest on Tuesday evening after a former government insider turned critic released an audio recording that he says proves that top officials conspired to cover up corruption, the latest development in a scandal that has shaken Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s domination of the country’s politics.

The country’s largest protests in years erupted in early February when it was revealed that the president had issued a pardon to a man imprisoned for covering up child sexual abuses by the director of a state-run orphanage.

Close Orban allies, including the president and Justice Minister Judit Varga, were forced to resign in the face of public outrage.

The latest allegations come from Varga’s ex-husband, Peter Magyar, a former political insider who says he has turned whistleblower to reveal the extent of impropriety within Orbán’s government.

He posted a recording on Facebook and YouTube on Tuesday featuring what appeared to be Varga’s voice describing how other government officials caused evidence to be removed from court records to cover up their roles in corrupt business dealings.

Magyar gave the recording to the Metropolitan Public Prosecutor’s Office in Budapest on Tuesday to be used as evidence.

AP video by Bela Szandelszky

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