(TELEGRAPH) — Up to 100,000 Hungarians have rallied in Budapest in protest over a new "internet tax" that critics have condemned as "government despotism" and an assault on the freedom of information.
The demonstration on Tuesday night was the second in three days and the biggest since Hungary's ruling Fidesz party came to power in 2010.
Controversy surrounding the proposed tax on internet data – believed to be the world's first internet levy – has fuelled further accusations levelled at the government of Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, of undermining democracy.
"The internet tax is a symbol of the government's despotism," Zsolt Varady, an internet entrepreneur, told the crowd. "We not only need to defeat the tax, we need to believe that we are capable of criticising and influencing the state.