Jail terms will be imposed on people or groups deemed to be aiding illegal immigrants

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Viktor Orbán’s government has introduced a controversial set of laws to the Hungarian parliament, known informally as the “Stop Soros” plan, that would impose jail terms on people or organisations deemed to be aiding illegal immigration.

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The legislation was a key promise of Orbán’s Fidesz party before elections last month. Fidesz won with a two-thirds majority, meaning the bill and a number of constitutional amendments can be passed without hitches.

The bill is known as “Stop Soros” because it targets some organisations funded by the financier and philanthropist George Soros, whom Orbán’s government has demonised for the past year as the main backer of illegal migration to Europe.

Rights activists have been worried about the bill because of the potential for any NGOs working to give legal or other aid to migrants arriving at Hungary’s borders to fall under the definition of supporting illegal migration.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest George Soros, financier and philanthropist. Photograph: AP

The text of the legal amendments, published late on Tuesday, did not contain a number of controversial provisions from previous drafts, which stipulated that NGOs working on migration would be subject to national security checks and a 25% tax on foreign funding.

However, it is unclear, given that the new law speaks of prison terms for those deemed to be aiding illegal migration, if the absence of those provisions indicates a climbdown.



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“Those who provide financial means … or conduct this organisational activity on a regular basis will be punishable with up to one year in prison,” read part of the law.

“This is a legal framework and it will be up to the courts to decide how they will qualify certain activities,” said Csaba Dömötör, state secretary, at a press conference on Tuesday.



Additional provisions make it impossible for anyone to claim asylum in Hungary if they passed through a country deemed safe prior to their arrival.

The UN’s refugee agency said the package of laws, if passed, would “deprive people who are forced to flee their homes of critical aid and services, and further inflame tense public discourse and rising xenophobic attitudes”.

Human Rights Watch has called for Fidesz to be expelled from the European People’s party grouping in the European parliament if the package is passed. The EPP, made up mainly of centre-right parties, has been tolerant of Orbán’s centralising impulses and populist campaigns, but its leaders have reportedly told the party’s leadership that there are certain red lines, including the closure of a Soros-founded university in Hungary.



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Since 2015, when hundreds of thousands of migrants passed through Hungary en route to western Europe, Orbán has based his political programme on harsh anti-migrant sentiment. He ordered the construction of a fence at the border between Hungary and Serbia, and his Fidesz party won a two-thirds majority in parliament last month after campaigning almost exclusively on an anti-migrant platform.



Earlier on Tuesday, Soros spoke in Paris to a gathering of foreign policy experts and suggested Europe needed to do more to support democratic governments in Africa to reduce the number of migrants fleeing them. He described a Europe in crisis, but accused populists of exploiting the situation.



“The whole of Europe has been disrupted by the refugee crisis. Unscrupulous leaders have exploited it even in countries that have accepted hardly any refugees. In Hungary, Victor Orbán based his re-election campaign on falsely accusing me of planning to flood Europe, Hungary included, with Muslim refugees,” Soros said.