PM party to file complaint over govt’s referendum billboard campaign

Budapest, July 28 (MTI) – The opposition Dialogue for Hungary (PM) party on Thursday said it would file a complaint for incitement against a group over the government’s billboard campaign for the referendum on migrant quotas.

For the past year and a half the government has been running a “hate campaign” against refugees with the aim of diverting attention from its corruption scandals and the state of the health-care and education systems, spokesman Bence Tordai told MTI.

Tordai said PM’s lawyers believe the billboard campaign constitutes the crime of incitement against a group because it links asylum seekers with terrorism, rape and other crimes. The government wants to instil fear into Hungarians that Europe is being flooded by millions of refugees and that many of them could be relocated to Hungary, he said.

PM is filing its complaint against an unidentified perpetrator because it is unclear how big of a role Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Antal Rogán, the prime minister’s cabinet chief or anyone else has in the campaign, he said.

He said the “incitement” against the refugees “could easily descend into violence”, insisting that if a refugee eventually becomes the victim of a hate crime in Hungary, the government would have to be held responsible for it.

Tordai said PM will organise an anti-violence demonstration at Budapest’s Kossuth Square on October 2, the day of the quota referendum and international day of non-violence.

Photo: www.kormany.hu

Source: MTI