Government avenges Magyar Telekom move

The Hungarian government instructed its ministries to cancel their contracts with Magyar Telekom after the company broke its sponsorship contract with pop singer Ákos Kovács for his words on women in a television interview.

Later, the information published on the government website was changed to state that the mobile Internet contracts would be cancelled - contracts that turned out to expire at the end of this month, anyway.

Pop singer Ákos Kovács, the beneficiary of several government controlled tenders and support, commented about the role of women in society in an interview earlier in the week, which triggered protest even from women, from opposition parties and even from a lot of his own fans as he had said that “the role of women is not to make as much money as men, … but belonging to someone, giving birth … being mothers”.

Last week, parlimanetary Speaker László Kövér (of the ruling Fidesz party) also said that Hungarian women should consider giving birth the “highest form of self-fulfillment”.