OLAF investigates MSZP’s false nurse video
August 4th, 2020A pro-government columnist suspects that the Hungarian Left will try to boost its popularity through lies and fake news as the 2022 general election approaches.
On 2 August, Fidesz communications chief István Hollik said that the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) is investigating (at the request of Fidesz) a Hungarian Socialist Party employee, on suspicion of being involved in the making of a misleading video about the coronavirus pandemic, whilst on the payroll of the European Parliament. The video showed a woman who claimed to be an ambulance nurse and alleged that 9 out of her ten patients sent home under a government order to empty hospital beds to prepare for coronavirus patients, had died. The woman was later shown to have no position in the ambulance service, and the Socialists admitted that they had not checked her allegations. The case is also being investigated by Hungarian prosecutors under a new law drafted to prevent the dissemination of false or misleading information during a health emergency.
Magyar Nemzet’s Ottó Gajdics accuses the Hungarian Left of emulating the methods and strategies of Communists after World War Two. The pro-government commentator suggests that the Left advocates freedom and equality only in order to gain power. The MSZP, he writes, is using the same tools that Communists did in the previous century. As an example, he mentions the video posted by MSZP MP Lajos Korózs in June (see BudaPost Jule 11), which is being investigated by OLAF, because MSZP MEP István Újhelyí’s assistant, who receives a salary from the EU, was involved in the preparation of the footage. Gajdics predicts that the MSZP will try to mobilize the public through similar fake news items in the future, unless the EU penalizes them harshly.