Viktor Orbán’s rightwing government in Hungary has faced a rare and sustained bout of protest in Budapest, as people rallied outside the state television headquarters on Monday after a number of opposition MPs had spent nearly 24 hours camping inside the building asking for their demands to be broadcast.

As many as 15,000 people marched through Budapest on Sunday, ignoring subzero temperatures to register their discontent with the government. Police used pepper spray against demonstrators in a number of tense standoffs. After the protest, people made their way to the television headquarters and a group of MPs demanded unsuccessfully to have a list of demands read out on air.

Security guards forcibly removed the MP Ákos Hadházy from the premises in the early hours of Monday, but others inside the building refused to leave, having spent the night in a makeup room. One MP was driven away in an ambulance later on Monday after sustaining minor injuries in a tussle with guards.



The MP Bence Tordai, who got into the building by climbing over a fence on Monday morning, said the next step would be for representatives of different opposition parties to meet and agree on a new strategy of resistance to Orbán’s government. The Hungarian opposition has been fractured and ineffectual, and is keen to seize on a rare sense of momentum.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Protesters against the ‘slave law’ light their mobile phones in front of the parliament building in Budapest. Photograph: Peter Kohalmi/AFP/Getty Images

The television building in the suburbs of Budapest was surrounded by several rings of riot police on Monday, but there were far fewer protesters than on previous evenings since the protests broke out last Wednesday.

The trigger for the protests was a piece of legislation labelled “slave law”, passed last Wednesday in parliament, that allows employers to increase the amount of overtime they can ask employees to work, but the mood is fuelled by a general malaise at the state of politics in Hungary.

The list of five demands MPs wanted to read out on television included the repeal of the “slave law”, an independent judiciary and independent public media.

Hungary passes 'slave law' prompting fury among opposition MPs Read more

On Wednesday, opposition MPs whistled, jeered and sounded sirens in parliament, in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to block the passing of the law, as well as another piece of legislation that will increase governmental control of the court system.

“Over the last eight years there have been a lot of similarly mind-blowing bills passed through parliament, but this ‘slavery law’ naturally creates a sense of solidarity because it can affect almost every Hungarian citizen,” Tordai said.

Orbán’s Fidesz party has a two-thirds majority in parliament and widespread support across the country. Since coming to power in 2010, the government has wrested control of a number of previously independent institutions, and most local and media outlets are controlled by government-allied figures. This year the European parliament voted to bring disciplinary proceedings against Hungary over rule-of-law issues.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Thousands protest against the new overtime law in Budapest, Hungary. Photograph: Balázs Mohai/EPA

As MPs camped out in the state television building, the channel made no reference to their presence, continuing with its usual output of news stories about migration, and suggesting that “pro-migration forces” were whipping up protests across Europe.

Orbán’s government has taken a nativist line on immigration, portraying itself as fighting powerful and “shadowy” pro-migration forces led by the Hungarian-born financier and philanthropist George Soros.

Government figures dismissed the protesters as insignificant in numbers, and with Christmas approaching it was unclear whether the movement would gain momentum or peter out.

So far, Orbán and his government have proved defiant, with the parliament speaker, László Kövér, criticising the opposition’s actions in parliament as “unprecedented in 28 years of Hungarian democracy”. Government-linked media have claimed the protests were organised by Soros.