Did female members of Hungary's opposition wear T-shirts saying "I do not have sex with Fideszers," referring to members of the governing Fidesz party? No, that's not true: The image of this had been doctored.
The still photo (archived here) appeared on TikTok on August 12, 2023. It showed opposition politicians Bernadett Szél, Tímea Szabó, Zita Gurmai, Anett Bősz and Ágnes Kunhalmi standing in the halls of Hungary's parliament sporting T-shirts that bore the words (translated from Hungarian to English by Lead Stories):
I do not have sex with Fideszers
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Aug 30 01:27:02 2023 UTC)
The photo is a doctored version of a picture that appeared on Szél's Facebook page on April 2, 2019. It shows that the five women were wearing T-shirts demanding the resignation of János Pócs, a Fidesz member of Parliament.
(Source: Image download from Index.hu on Wed Aug 30 02:23:12 2023 UTC)
Pócs was criticized after a video emerged of him threatening to incinerate one of his Roma employees in a furnace, according to a report published by Népszava on March 24, 2019. Pócs said the video, taken in 2008, was made in jest, the article said.
A cropped version of the altered photo appeared, according to news site 444.hu, on the Facebook page of András Aradszki, an ally of Fidesz in Parliament. 444.hu published a screenshot of the altered photo on December 9, 2019. Aradszki's comment on his Facebook account read:
Unfortunately, this is the level that the opposition is on today.
Aradszki retracted the post later on December 9, 2019, published the original photo and apologized to the women who appeared in it.
Opposition lawmaker Ágnes Vadai cited Aradszki's post as an example of the disrespect that governing politicians show toward women in an address to Parliament on May 4, 2020.
