Átlátszó rejects the allegations made in their report and files a lawsuit against Sovereignty Protection Office

Átlátszó disputes the claims of the “investigation report” by the Sovereignty Protection Office. The report titled “The Impact of Átlátszó’s Activities on Hungarian Sovereignty” is unfounded and, in many cases, contains downright lies. We are thus launching a defamation lawsuit against them.

First of all, we maintain that the Office does not even have the power to investigate the activities of Átlátszó on the basis of the law applicable to it, which is otherwise unconstitutionally broadly formulated, as is clearly shown by the fact that the Office did not try to base its investigation on any specific law, but on a vague reference to its “powers granted by law” in totality.

The law only allows the Office to investigate activities carried out “in the interest of” another state or foreign body or person, or political activities financed by foreign funding. However, the Office confuses the provisions of the law that apply to it by subjecting Átlátszó, which operates independently of political parties, does not engage in party political activity and is funded by reader support and grants for its own projects, to investigation on the sole ground that part of its funding comes from foreign institutional sponsors.

All of this leads to the conclusion that a state body, which exists and operates unconstitutionally, is taking action against a journalistic activity that is lawfully carried out, exercising constitutional rights guaranteed in the Basic Law of Hungary.

The Office has not sent the draft report to Átlátszó for comment and justified this with our own reply to their request for information, which contested their legal area of competence. This also clearly shows that the investigation was carried out without a legal framework, since the law clearly stipulates, with no exceptions, that the draft must be submitted to the body under investigation for its opinion.

Having said all this, we do not of course think that we could have corrected the many gross factual errors and misstatements in the report, or remedied the misunderstandings, by commenting on the draft. However, it is still a fact that this omission excluded us from the possibility of doing so, so that the Office bears clear responsibility for the untrue statements of fact that have damaged the reputation of Átlátszó, the most serious of which are the subject of the legal action against the Office.

The agency was also apparently able to make concrete findings about Átlátszó’s financial management without our involvement, and what is stated in their report is based on what we have already published. We publicly clarify the use of the subsidies received, in much more details than what is even required in the law. Accordingly, we fail to see a reason why the agency may think that our finances are not transparent – besides trying to please their financers.

It should be noted that all information and data related to our activities and operations are accessible from the prosecutor’s office, through the courts, to the tax authority, and even to the secret services. In 14 years of operation, no one has ever found any violations in this regard, and the last tax authority investigation two years ago did not find any administrative failures, and our activities were deemed lawful, including in terms of management.

The question arises: what have the Hungarian secret services been doing over the past 14 years if it can be established from otherwise public documents that Átlátszó is carrying out intelligence and disinformation activities in the interests of a foreign country, which are a serious threat to sovereignty? Two things are possible: either they, or the Sovereignty Protection Office, is totally incompetent.

Of course, we wouldn’t be happy if our work won the unconditional approval of the political powers that be and the government of the day. However, when all they have to say about our work in investigative journalism – which, when it serves the current narrative, is often quoted by government media too – and our projects supporting transparency in local and national governments is that it serves foreign interests, then they are no longer servicing democratic discourse, but contributing to its death.

This is a blatant return to the age of Soviet-style propaganda about “imperialist agents”.

It does not matter that in the rhetoric of today’s predetermined verdict, it is no longer “the power of the workers” that is threatened by the internal enemy, but “Hungarian sovereignty”. We sincerely believe that the Hungarian public deserves much better than this, and we do not wish to say any more about this, because we cannot demean our dignity and common sense by stooping down to such a level.