{"id":489,"date":"2025-12-10T12:16:53","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T11:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mediaforum.hu\/?p=489"},"modified":"2025-12-10T12:17:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T11:17:03","slug":"az-atlatszo-elso-fokon-pert-nyert-a-szuverenitasvedelmi-hivatallal-szemben","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mediaforum.hu\/en\/2025\/12\/10\/az-atlatszo-elso-fokon-pert-nyert-a-szuverenitasvedelmi-hivatallal-szemben\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00c1tl\u00e1tsz\u00f3 Wins First-Instance Lawsuit Against Sovereignty Protection Office"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">M\u00e9diaf\u00f3rum welcomes the first-instance ruling of the Budapest Metropolitan Court, which found that the Sovereignty Protection Office (SPO) had <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/english.atlatszo.hu\/2025\/12\/04\/atlatszo-wins-first-instance-lawsuit-against-the-sovereignty-protection-office\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">violated the reputation<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of \u00c1tl\u00e1tsz\u00f3\u2019s journalists.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The lawsuit concerned a 2024 <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/szuverenitasvedelmihivatal.hu\/dokumentumok\/the-impact-of-atlatszos-activities-on-hungarian-sovereignty.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">report <\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">published by the SPO, which accused the outlet\u2014among other things\u2014of intelligence gathering and spreading disinformation on behalf of foreign actors, without providing any supporting evidence. \u00c1tl\u00e1tsz\u00f3 argued that these unfounded allegations seriously damaged the reputation of its editorial staff and therefore <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/english.atlatszo.hu\/2024\/11\/05\/atlatszo-rejects-the-allegations-made-in-their-report-and-files-a-lawsuit-against-sovereignty-protection-office\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">filed <\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">a lawsuit against the Office.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to the court\u2019s first-instance <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/document\/963492941\/Atlatszo-vs-Szuverenitasvedelmi-Hivatal-els%C5%91foku-itelet\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">decision<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the SPO had made false claims and acted unlawfully. The Office was ordered to issue an apology, publish a corrective statement, and pay compensation for damages. The ruling is not yet final, the parties may appeal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The decision sends a clear message: public authorities cannot abuse their communication powers, nor can they launch unfounded, targeted attacks against journalists. Baseless accusations against the independent press carry consequences.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Commenting on the judgment, Tam\u00e1s Bodoky, Editor-in-Chief of \u00c1tl\u00e1tsz\u00f3, said: \u201cThe court\u2019s decision is a great satisfaction for us, as it has become clear that even a state body cannot lie without consequences. It is therefore worthwhile to turn to the courts if someone has suffered harm at the hands of the Sovereignty Protection Office.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">10\/12\/2025<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>M\u00e9diaf\u00f3rum welcomes the first-instance ruling of the Budapest Metropolitan Court, which found that the Sovereignty Protection Office (SPO) had violated the reputation of \u00c1tl\u00e1tsz\u00f3\u2019s journalists. The lawsuit concerned a 2024 report published by the SPO, which accused the outlet\u2014among other things\u2014of intelligence gathering and spreading disinformation on behalf of foreign actors, without providing any supporting <a href=\"https:\/\/mediaforum.hu\/en\/2025\/12\/10\/az-atlatszo-elso-fokon-pert-nyert-a-szuverenitasvedelmi-hivatallal-szemben\/\" class=\"more-link\">&#8230;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  \u00c1tl\u00e1tsz\u00f3 Wins First-Instance Lawsuit Against Sovereignty Protection Office<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atlatszo","category-szuverenitas-vedelmi-hivatal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediaforum.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediaforum.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediaforum.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediaforum.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediaforum.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mediaforum.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":490,"href":"https:\/\/mediaforum.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489\/revisions\/490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediaforum.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediaforum.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediaforum.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}