László Bodolai

As chairman of the foundation and holding company (Indamedia) that controlled Index.hu, media lawyer László Bodolai dismissed longtime editor-in-chief Szabolcs Dull in the summer of 2020, after more than two decades of Index's editorial independence. The removal triggered a mass resignation of the entire newsroom and is regarded as one of the most serious cases of politically-driven censorship in the Hungarian media market. In November 2020, Indamedia - co-owned by government-aligned media figure Miklós Vaszily - bought back Index.hu Zrt.'s shares outright, and Bodolai stepped down from the board, continuing to support the group as a media lawyer. Bodolai disputes this characterization, saying Index would have ceased to exist had he not intervened and that he never saw his actions as political pressure.