Did former Hungarian President Katalin Novak admit in an interview that she is only a puppet and that homosexuals, pedophiles and former agents are sitting in the Christian Democratic People's Party (KDNP) political group? No, that's not true: The audio of the interview has been altered. In the original video, she discussed Pope Francis' visit to Hungary in 2023. Novak resigned on Feb. 10, 2024.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok on February 7, 2024, under the title (translated from Hungarian to English by Lead Stories staff): "Interview with Katalin Novak. Katalin Novak is a puppet." It opened (as translated):
... I'm just a mannequin whose job it is to smile like a moron and sign everything they put in front of me. ... Within the KDNP faction lurk homosexuals, practicing pedophiles and former organized agents, who mix in our circles while maintaining the appearance of ultra-national Christianity. ...
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Thu Feb 8 17:02:34 2024 UTC)
The initial footage stemmed from an interview on public TV channel M1 (archived here) on May 4, 2023, during which she discussed Pope Francis' visit to Hungary.
The modified video was originally created by Politikalipszis (archived here), a channel known for frequently posting political satire videos with dubbed content. Politikalipszis explicitly stated that the video is satire and identified it as AI-generated in the description. However, the individual who reposted the video on TikTok did not include this clarification.
The satirical video likely links Novak to people involved in pedophilia following recent revelations by the press that she granted a pardon (archived here; court decision Bfv.1191/2022/13) to a teacher in 2023 who had covered for his boss, now convicted of pedophilia. The president did not offer any explanation for her decision. However, during a press conference (archived here) in early February 2024, she expressed her disgust for pedophilia but noted that under Hungarian law, she was not obligated to publicly justify her decisions regarding pardons.
The pardon decision was published as part of a longer document on the case (as translated):
(Source: Doc screenshot taken on Mon Feb 12 16:11:00 2024 UTC)
"[24] In the meantime, on 27 April 2023, the President of the Republic, by her Decision No. KEH/2787-6/2023 on the decision on the pardon application, appointed the II. suspended the remaining part of the sentence of deprivation of liberty imposed in the present case for a probationary period of 5 years, pardoned the remaining part of the sentence of disqualification from performing any occupation and the remaining part of the ancillary sentence of disqualification from public office, and pardoned the defendant from any criminal record in respect of the sentence."
Novak resigned from her position on February 10, 2024, due to the outcry over that pardon.
