As Hungary prepares for a referendum on Europe's response to the refugee crisis, its leaders are accused of rewarding intolerance by giving a prestigious state prize to a writer notorious for using racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric.
Zsolt Bayer – a co-founder of Hungary's ruling Fidesz party and long-time friend of its leader, prime minister Viktor Orban – was awarded the Order of Merit of the Knight's Cross recently for his "exemplary journalistic activities".
According to the citation, this outstanding work related to his research and writing on ethnic Hungarians in Romania and Hungarian prisoners in the Soviet gulag, but Bayer is much better known for screeds denouncing Jews, Gypsies and now refugees and migrants.
In response, scores of earlier recipients of the Knight’s Cross have vowed to return the award, saying they cannot bear to share the honour with Bayer.
The latest was Katrina Lantos Swett, daughter of Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor and US congressman Tom Lantos, who said she felt "compelled to join the many others who have denounced the shamefulness of granting this state honour to a hate-filled xenophobe like Zsolt Bayer".
Lantos Swett, president of the Budapest-based Tom Lantos Institute, which works for minority rights, said she would hand back the prize with a "heavy heart", but believed "Bayer's despicable record of overt and hateful anti-Semitism and racism is beneath contempt. He deserves censure, not honour, for his loathsome writings and speech."
The US Holocaust memorial museum was one of many voices that called on Orban and Hungarian president Janos Ader to rescind the award "immediately".
The museum noted that "state awards in Hungary are approved by the prime minister and the president ... and it was Janos Lazar, minister for the prime minister's office and the government's point person for dialogue and engagement with the country's Jewish community, who personally presented the award to Bayer."
“Bayer ... has referred to Jews as ‘stinking excrement’ and has written hateful pieces about the Roma, calling them ‘animals’ that should not be allowed to exist,” the museum said in a statement.
Andras Heisler, the president of Hungary's biggest Jewish organisation, Mazsihisz, has also pledged to return his prize, saying he did "not wish to belong to any community to which Zsolt Bayer belongs, even virtually".
There has been no suggestion from Orban’s government or Ader’s presidential office that they might revoke the award, and Bayer has derided his critics for being “so locked up in their closed, narrow, and sad worlds.”
The furore has strengthened the impression among many observers that an aggressive and populist nationalism is now a key part of Orban’s platform, as his government continues to campaign strongly ahead of the October 2nd referendum.
Voters will be asked: "Do you want to allow the European Union to mandate the resettlement of non-Hungarian citizens to Hungary without the approval of parliament?"
Among EU leaders, Orban has been the staunchest critic of German-led plans for a quota scheme to distribute refugees around the bloc, and he calls the mostly Muslim migrants arriving in Europe a grave threat to its security and identity.
After building fences on Hungary’s borders with Serbia and Croatia a year ago to divert refugees and migrants on the “Balkan route” around his country, Orban‘s government also erected roadside billboards and launched radio and television adverts warning of the supposed danger posed by asylum seekers.
Posters recently released on the government’s website include the messages: “Did you know? Since the start of the immigration crisis, more than 300 people in Europe have died in terror attacks.”
Another asks: “Did you know? Since the start of the migration crisis there has been a sharp increase in harassment of women in Europe.”
The Hungarian government insists that its tough, security-led approach to the refugee crisis is an example to EU members, and Orban’s rejection of the quota plan is backed by several other central European and Balkan states.
Critics say the danger posed by Orban and his ilk far outweighs the risks from refugees, however.
The UN high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, said this week that populists like Orban, US presidential candidate Donald Trump, Britain's Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage and French far-right leader Marine Le Pen resembled Islamic State in peddling fear, lies and bigotry, and by promising a return to an ethnically and culturally "pure" past that never really existed.
Hungarian foreign minister Peter Szijjarto said the "unacceptable and outrageous" comments proved Al Hussein was "unfit to fill any position within the United Nations. "
