Hungary: PM defends media law but signals its dilution

Hungary will change its much-criticised new media law if the European Union wants, prime minister Viktor Orban has said.

Delivering a vigorous defence of the legislation yesterday, which has been roundly criticised by France, Britain and Germany, he said: "We are part of the EU, there are rules of the game."

Reporters had been invited to meet Mr Orban as he prepared to takeover the rotating presidency of the EU for the next six months. However, he said he did not believe there was anything in Hungary's law that was not already in any other EU member state's legislation .

Hungary says the media law had to be changed because the old legislation was ineffective, with increasingly virulent tabloid TV channels and newspapers.

Andras Koltay, a professor of media freedom who helped draft the law, used the examples of a newspaper that ran front-page pictures of a Hungarian footballer shortly before he died during a game, and a TV reality show that questioned a girl about her sex life until she broke down.

"They were violations of human dignity, and that is what this new law aims to protect," he said.

But some passages have raised profound concern about how far Hungary is willing to go.

Article 17 states: "The media content may not offend or discriminate against - whether expressedly or by implication - persons, nations, communities, national, ethnic, linguistic and other minorities or any majority as well as any church or religious groups", according to an official translation. Critics say that is too broad a net.