ORBAN GOVERNMENT REMAINS SILENT ABOUT ‘HUNGARY’S WATERGATE’

An international investigation by 17 media organisations found that the Hungarian government was among those who acquired the controversial spy software Pegasus from Israeli surveillance company NSO and used it to target a range of journalists, businessmen and activists. They included two journalists who worked for investigative news site Direkt36, known for its stories exposing high-level corruption and the Hungarian government’s deepening relationships with China and Russia.

In response to the revelations, Hungary’s journalist association demanded an immediate explanation from the Fidesz government. And Janos Stummer, of the formerly radical right Jobbik party and current chairman of the parliamentary committee on national security, described the scandal as Hungary’s Watergate.

“If Fidesz remains silent, it means they admit it,” Stummer said, while calling for an extraordinary parliamentary committee to investigate the case.

Szabolcs Panyi, one of the journalists targeted (and a BIRN commentator), published a long story on Telex.hu, writing that the Hungarian government has been a client of NSO since 2018. NSO is licensed to sell its spyware only with the express permission of the Israeli Defence Ministry and the program can purportedly only be used to fight criminals or terrorism.

The spyware reportedly began being used in Hungary after high-level talks between Hungarian and Israeli government officials. The head of Hungary’s intelligence services and key Orban ally Jozsef Czukor – currently Hungary’s ambassador to Switzerland – was even welcomed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanjahu, which is an unusual gesture in diplomatic circles unless something particularly important is on the agenda.

Another person reportedly targeted by the spyware was entrepreneur Zoltan Varga, one of the richest media moguls in Hungary and owner of Central Media Group, which publishes the government-critical news site 24.hu.

According to the reports, Varga organised a dinner in June 2018, two months after the last election, for fellow businessmen, most of whom were critical of Viktor Orban’s government. Two weeks after the dinner, a former employee with close ties to the government called Varga to warn him: “I know you hosted this dinner, it is really dangerous and you should not do things like that.”

Amnesty International, which helped in the research for the collaborative investigation run by the French nonprofit journalistic organisation Forbidden Stories, says forensic analysis of the phones points to at least one of the invited guests having had his phone infected by Pegasus by the time of the dinner. The spyware can activate the microphone on mobile phones and record complete discussions.

Varga told Direkt36 that he has been aware of being under surveillance for some time: cars are parked in front of his house with people inside doing apparently nothing, his phone conversations were abruptly cut short and he has even listened back to some of his own words. About the dinner, he said: “It was a friendly conversation – not a coup d’état.”

The phones of Szabolcs Pany and Andras Szabo from Direkt36 were hacked several times in 2019, when they travelled to the US and worked on stories about US-Hungarian and US-Israeli relations, or the relocation of the Russia-funded International Investment Bank to Budapest.

Both journalists believed they communicated through secure channels when organizing interviews or talking to sources, yet Pegasus managed to penetrate their phones using a deficiency of the iMessage function.

Surveillance in Hungary is regulated in a rather lax manner, experts say. “In most countries, there are either strict rules about whom the state can monitor and when, or there is a strong legal control over how the secret services can work. Neither of those applies to Hungary,” Daniel Mate Szabo, from Hungary’s Civil Liberties Union, told Direkt36.

Previously, another news site 168ora.hu revealed that Minister of Justice Judit Varga allowed as many as 500 times “the collection of secret data for national security purposes” in the first three and half months of 2021. This amounts to five permits a day and underlines how the intelligence services are extremely active in Hungary. Since 2015, the number of surveillance permits has constantly been on the rise.

When asked about Pegasus and its use against journalists, Hungary’s government responded by saying: “Hungary is a democratic state governed by the rule of law, and as such, when it comes to any individual it has always acted and continues to act in accordance with the law in force. In Hungary, state bodies authorised to use covert instruments are regularly monitored by governmental and non-governmental institutions.”

In an earlier interview with Le Monde, Justice Minister Varga said it was a “provocation” to ask whether she would authorise the surveillance of a journalist, but said “there are so many dangers to the state everywhere”. Later, she requested the removal of the question and the answer.

Hungary’s government media have so far not reported on the spyware scandal.