Nagy Blanka is 19-years old Hungarian lady. She was not a celebrity, nor someone particularly active in politics. Her name and face were starting to be known in Hungary during the anti-government and anti-media protests between December and January in which she heavily criticized the current state of the country, led by alt-right prime minister Orbán Viktor who gobbled up nearly all media, the judiciary and much more during the past decade. She took stage in one of these protests, in which she also heavily criticized the current president of the country, Áder János, admittedly with rather harsh words: she called him a turd with a moustache for not doing anything against these government's actions, and instead blindly signing off any absurd bill Orbán Viktor's party proposes.
This was too much for the Hungarian media, both the one directly owned by the state and those effectively controlled by people close to them, but of course not officially in their hands. Government-friendly publicist and big friend of Orbán Viktor, Bayer Zsolt, called her, among other things, a proletarian whore. Many of his colleagues joined in attacking her for spreading lies and insulting a member of the Hungarian politics - of course, when they were insulting the opposition and such with far worse names, it wasn't so outrageous. At first, she was simply attacked for mundane things, including demagocic reasonings about how she can't be against the controversial slave law because she never once worked in her life. But then, multiple state-friendly giants like the website Origo or newspaper Ripost (which then were echoed by the state-owned TV as well) started claiming she constantly skips school, and has terrible grades in a variety of subjects, which is causing her to be failing those subjects.
Now, since there are privacy laws and regulations around Europe, you can probably see why this is very bad. There are effectively two scenarios at play:
- They either illegally accessed a student's grades, and violated her privacy by sharing them with the country without the family's or her permission.
- Or they fabricated this information to make it seem like she's ignorant.
Fast forward to our days, and the alt-right media in Hungary is still not happy about Nagy Blanka's presence in what is now the public space. She frequently gives out interviews to opposition or free media, she appears in multiple protests and political events - because the Hungarian government attacked her so hard, a lot of people opposed to this fascist system now see a victim of the country, a recognizable face and someone who's not afraid to keep saying the truth despite all the character assassination she has to endure. A couple days ago, she took part in yet another political event organized by ex-prime minister Gyurcsány Ferenc' current political party, to which a photographer from yet another state-friendly publication, Pesti Srácok, decided to take and then publish a photo of her underwear while she had her legs slightly open. You can see the cropped version of the photo below, as published (and taken off a couple hours later) on the website:
The journalist who wrote the article about the event went on to call her obscene, claiming she's trying and failing to imitate Sharon Stone from the famous scene in Basic Instinct. Naturally, all of the state-friendly media then proceeded to report on this "scoop", adding offensive adjectives of their own wherever possible. Just so you know, there is no law in place against such a photo in Hungary, not specifically at least. Nagy Blanka will likely win yet another lawsuit due to yet another publication shaming her by publishing things about her privacy: this time it's not her grades or background, but a photo of what she is wearing under a dress. But the problem is that millions of people who only read one or more of the over 400 publications tied to the Hungarian government will only get one image of her: a lying, cheating, ignorant whore. Because in Hungary, if a 19-years old takes the stage during an anti-government protest and decides to heavily criticize the government, the only natural answer such a fascist organization can give is to destroy her in every possible way. And before you ask, none of the journalist, writers, opinionists, cameramen, etc. who engaged in this shameful campaign lost their jobs or anything of the sort.
Regardless of what you think of Nagy Blanka and her messages, her story is yet another example of how a EU country's government has the power and will to practically destroy the privacy and public image of a person, just because said person dared to publicly criticize the political situation. This is but one of the many stories like these currently going on in Hungary, where the difamation of public figures isn't even done by some nameless conspiracy blog or some far-right party: it's literally ordered and paid for by the government. I suppose we can be glad we're not at Putin's Russia levels yet: she could be in prison or dead by now. But hey, it's never too late for the Hungarian government to reach that spot, right?
TL;DR version: 19 years old girl publicly criticizes the government and state figures. State media then publishes all kinds of editorials on her trying to discredit her, including fabricating negative grades in school and the fact she's skipping school. She sues and wins. The media doesn't stop, however, increasing the insults, publishing her actual grades from the trial papers, and even going as far as publishing a photo snapped in the brief moment her legs open were slightly while she was sitting at a political event. None of the journalists who took part of this character assassination had any consequence for their actions, at best the publications themselves paid fines.
