EC to sue Hungary over anti-LGBTQ law, sources say











Photo credit © Reuters


BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Commission will sue Hungary over an anti-LGBTQ law and its refusal to renew the license of Klubradio, a radio station critical of the government, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters , before an official announcement on Friday.

These two trials add to the long list of disputes between Hungarian nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban and the liberal core of the European Union on the issue of human rights and democratic standards.

The Commission will take Budapest to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), the bloc’s highest court, for rejecting “on highly questionable grounds” Klubradio’s application for a broadcasting license and for discriminating against the station , according to sources.

Klubradio, whose guests often criticize the government and which now only broadcasts online, was forced to go off the air more than a year ago.

A government spokesman said there was no problem with media freedom in Hungary and it was not true that the government had shut down the station.

The second case concerns a law that Hungary passed last year that bans the use of material considered to promote homosexuality and gender change in schools.

Presented as protecting children by the government of Viktor Orban, this law has been criticized by human rights groups and international watchdogs, who consider it discriminatory against LGBTQ people, and qualified of “shame” by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.

The EU executive withheld billions of euros in aid from Hungary over disputes over gay rights, as well as the independence of its media and courts.

(Report Charlotte Van Campenhout and Gabriela Baczynska; French version Elitsa Gadeva, edited by Kate Entringer)










click here for restrictions
©2022 Reuters
Reuters



Source link -87