What is the Orbán government's "revenge law," stoking demonstrations of teachers & students in Budapest?

The law is a tool to brutally opress & intimidate teachers critical of the government— it opens the door to the monitoring of their private devices & social media activity 🧵 The situation is spiralling out of control. In a completely disproportionate way, high schoolers & other protesters are getting roughed up and teargassed by the police. Yesterday, a @momentumhu MP @MartonTompos was dragged out of the crowd, handcuffed & detained

https://twitter.com/MartonTompos/status/1654006659914555392

Orban’s disgraceful state of the nation speech was a flurry of his greatest hits: apologetic towards Russia, blaming the conflict on the West, berating EU & NATO allies—

peppered by a distasteful joke on Nazi Germany & conflating the LGBTQ+ community with pedophiles (again)👇 On the Ukraine war, Orban lamented how even Germany joined those who stand “on the side of the war,” adding that they “did not go from their own will,” even dropping a nasty insult equating the Federal Republic to Nazi Germany (musing “they may still have the old maps”)

🚨 Bombshell 🚨uncovered by my friend & @momentumhu MP @MartonTompos & colleagues—

China 🇨🇳 runs two police stations in the middle of Budapest, calling them “overseas help centres.”

In an EU & NATO member, it raises security & human rigths concerns & needs scrutiny.

A thread. 1/

@MartonTompos asked Hungary's Ministry of Interior, but, rather shockingly, the state organ responsible for overseeing police forces knows nothing about Chinese police stations in the middle of the Hungarian capital. This fact alone should raise eyebrows.

Staggering crowds at yesterday's protests in Budapest, as students, teachers & allies rally against the crisis of public education in Orbán’s Hungary

👉 Some background to better understand what brought the situation to a boiling point for teachers & their incredible students 🧵 1/

The immediate trigger was the sacking of several teachers, including Tamás Palya & Katalin Törley (pictured below)

It was retaliation for their civil disobedience action, their only form of protest left after the government outlawed strikes

🚨 Happening now. 🚨 Thousands on the streets in Budapest. Outrage against the Orban government’s neglect of public education & solidarity with teachers who have been fired in retaliation for striking has really reached a boiling point. #nincstanárnincsjövő #noteachernofuture
Budapest right now 🇭🇺💜

Viktor Orban's race-mixing rant included a nasty insult against basically every EU ally. The absolute low point for HU diplomacy. But this language is toxic for the EU as a whole & it should be called out.

Some quotes, carefully left out from official English-language writeups: When talking about the energy crisis, Orban said--

"the EU wants everyone to reduce their gas consumption by 15 percent. I don't see how they can enforce it, but there is German know-how for this... From a long time ago, I mean."

Yes, that's a joke about gas and Nazi Germany.

It took @ZelenskyyUa’s extraordinary moral clarity to call out Orban’s shameful cozying up to Putin

This is exactly why we are fighting our hearts out to unseat him. Hungary deserves so much better than the lone protector of a war criminal in the EU

Orban & his mouthpieces attacked Zelensky, saying “have you no shame.” Orban is “protecting Hungary’s interests,”“peace in our country” and “low energy prices”— they aregue.

None of it is true. His actions serve Putin’s interests, not Hungary’s. Here’s why👇

Thousands protest at Hungary’s public broadcaster MTVA, fed up with Orban’s vast media machine spreading Kremlin talking points & disinformation about the #UkraineWar

Here’s a thread with examples👇

Dear EU, this undermines all efforts to counter Putin’s propaganda @EUvsDisinfo 1

The EU banned Sputnik and RT— but here’s a “security expert” on Hungary’s public broadcaster comparing Zelensky to Hitler