Category Archives: European migrant crisis

Referendum Homestretch on Hungarian Television

October 6, 2016 By in 2016 migrant-quota referendum, European migrant crisis, Hungarian Television, propaganda Leave a comment

Below are screenshots taken from programs broadcast on the M1 news channel of state-run Hungarian Television from 3:00 p.m. until 6:30 p.m. on October 2, 2016—that is, until half an hour before the closing of polls in Hungary’s referendum on European Union migrant-resettlement quotas (see Hungary’s 2016 Referendum on European Union Migrant Resettlement Quotas and The Referendum That Couldn’t Fail).

Aside from intermittent weather bulletins and a report on the new leadership of the U.K. Labour Party, newscasts and programs broadcast on M1 during this three-and-a-half-hour period dealt with just two issues—the referendum results and migration.

The screenshots are from the various reports on migration. Note that in 2013, the National Assembly approved an amendment to Hungary’s electoral laws that eliminated campaign silence (source in Hungarian).

See entire post.

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The Referendum That Couldn’t Fail

October 3, 2016 By in 2016 migrant-quota referendum, European migrant crisis, European Union Leave a comment

In February 2016, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán initiated a referendum in Hungary asking voters to respond to the following question (source in Hungarian):

Do you want the European Union to be able to mandate the obligatory settlement of non-Hungarian citizens in Hungary even without the approval of the [Hungarian] National Assembly?

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Prime Minister Viktor Orbán speaks to supporters following the referendum on the European Union migrant-resettlement quota (photo: index.hu).

This question refers specifically to the resettlement of 1,294 Syrian, Iraqi and Eritrean refugees from Italy and Greece to Hungary as part of a European Union plan adopted in September 2015 (see 2016 Referendum on European Union Migrant Resettlement Quotas).

The result of the referendum in terms of approval or rejection of the European Union migrant-resettlement quota for Hungary was never in doubt: opinion polls consistently showed that the number of voters who rejected the quota was many times larger than the number of voters who accepted it (see “Opinion Polls” section of the relevant Wikipedia article).

The only question was: would voter turnout exceed the 50-percent threshold required for the referendum to be considered legally valid?

See entire post.

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Hungary’s 2016 Referendum on European Union Migrant Resettlement Quotas

September 11, 2016 By in 2016 migrant-quota referendum, European migrant crisis Leave a comment

Official name: Referendum against Compulsory Resettlement (Népszavazás a kényszerbetelepítés ellen).

Date: October 2, 2016.

Question: Do you want the European Union to be able to mandate the obligatory settlement of non-Hungarian citizens in Hungary even without the approval of the [Hungarian] National Assembly? (Akarja-e, hogy az Európai Unió az Országgyűlés hozzájárulása nélkül is előírhassa nem magyar állampolgárok Magyarországra történő kötelező betelepítésé?)

Issue: The resettlement of 1,294 Syrian, Iraqi and Eritrean refugees from Italy (306 refugees) and Greece (988 refugees) to Hungary as part of a European Union plan adopted in September 2015 to transfer 120,000 such refugees from Italy and Greece to other EU member states over the subsequent two years (source in English).

Orbán government position: Rejects mandatory resettlement quotas.

See entire post.

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Röszke—One Year Later

September 5, 2016 By in European migrant crisis Leave a comment
Migrants travel along defunct railway in northern Serbia on September 15, 2015 (photo: Orange Files).

Migrants enter Hungary via defunct railway in September 2015 (photo: Orange Files).

Tens of thousands of migrants passed along the defunct railway from Serbia into Hungary near the village of Röszke on their way to Western Europe during the summer and early fall of 2015 before the Orbán government closed this final gap in the border on September 15 (see The Fields Are Speaking Pashto and The Curtain Falls Again).

Now, in early September 2016: vegetation has engulfed the rails and the thick trail of discarded belongings and refuse that the migrants left behind them. There is no visible evidence of the mass movement of people that took place along these tracks just one year ago.

See entire post.

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Prime Minister Orbán’s March 15 Speech

March 17, 2016 By in European migrant crisis, European Union, March 15, Orbán, speech 2 Comments
Prime Minister Orbán waves to audience following his speech on March 15, 2016 (photo: MTI).

Prime Minister Orbán waves to audience following his speech on March 15, 2016 (photo: MTI).

On March 15, 2016, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán delivered his annual speech outside the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest commemorating the anniversary of the 1848 Hungarian Revolution against Habsburg rule. Below is an Orange Files translation of the speech (source in Hungarian).

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Esteemed celebrators!

Europe is not free, because freedom starts with the statement of truth. Today in Europe it is forbidden to state the truth. Even if made of silk, a muzzle remains a muzzle. It is forbidden to state that those who are currently arriving are not refugees, but that a mass migration threatens Europe. It is forbidden to state that immigration brings crime and terror into our countries. It is forbidden to state that those who arrive from other civilizations represent a danger to our way of life, our culture, our customs and our Christian traditions. It is forbidden to state that instead of assimilating, those who arrived earlier have built a separate-entry world for themselves with their own laws and their own ideals that pry the millennial European frameworks apart. It is forbidden to state that this is not an incidental and unintentional chain of consequences, but a planned-out and guided action, a mass of people directed upon us. It is forbidden to state that in Brussels they are currently scheming to transport foreigners here as quickly as possible and to settle them among us. It is forbidden to say that the objective of this settlement is to redraw the religious and cultural patterns of Europe, to rebuild its ethnic footings, thereby eliminating the nation-states that represent the last impediment to the Internationale. It is forbidden to state that Brussels is today stealthily swallowing more and more slices of our national sovereignty, that in Brussels many are today working on the plan for a European United States for which nobody ever granted them the authority.

See entire speech.

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Slaying the Gentle Giant

January 17, 2016 By in European migrant crisis, Migration Aid, propaganda Leave a comment
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Orange Files photograph of Baba that ripost.hu used without citing the source. 

On January 11, 2016, the on-line tabloid ripost.hu published an article entitled “Serial Criminal Ex-Convict at the Head of Soros’s Hungarian Migrant Organization!” (Börtönviselt, sokszoros bűnöző Soros magyar migráns­szervezetének élén!) regarding Baba, the most prominent volunteer for the Migration Aid non-governmental organization that provided food, clothing and other forms of assistance to tens of thousands of migrants as they passed through Hungary on their way to Germany in the summer and early autumn of 2015 (source in Hungarian).

The ripost.hu article claimed that Migration Aid, which started as a Facebook group in June 2015, was part of a “well developed Soros migrant-assistance network” that “following its establishment immediately received support from the Budapest Soros Foundation.”

The article used the following terms and phrases to describe Baba, an enormous man whom Western media such as The Guardian and the Associated Press dubbed the “Gentle Giant”: “refined criminal”; “serious criminal”; “dyed-in-the-wool swindler”; and “criminal well-known in the underworld.”

See entire post.

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Through the Roof

December 16, 2015 By in European migrant crisis, Fidesz, poll Leave a comment

On December 11, 2015, the Medián Public Opinion and Market Research Institute—one of the most reliable polling companies in Hungary—published the results of a November survey in which 51 percent of eligible voters with an established party preference reported that they would vote for ruling party Fidesz, compared to 27 percent for five democratic left-liberal parties, 21 percent for the radical-nationalist Jobbik party and one percent for the Workers’ Party (source in Hungarian). Medián, which began operating at the time of Hungary’s transition from communism to democracy in 1989, noted that no governing party had ever recorded such high support among sure voters in a company poll conducted more than a year and a half after a National Assembly election as Fidesz did in November 2015.

 

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Source: Medián Public Opinion and Market Research Institute poll/Orange File

 

See entire post.

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Hungary and the Great Migration: Demographic Data

November 17, 2015 By in European migrant crisis Leave a comment

Over 390,000 migrants passed through Hungary on their way to Western Europe from the beginning of 2015 until the Orbán government sealed the Hungarian-Croatian border on October 17, thus essentially putting an end to migration through the country. Below are basic demographic statistics regarding the number, age, gender and nationality of these migrants.

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The National Police Headquarters (ORFK) reported that its officers had taken action against 390,901 “illegal immigrants” between January 1 and November 1 of 2015 (source in Hungarian).

See entire post.

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Source: Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

 

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Viktor’s Anti-Migration Gambit Pays Off

November 2, 2015 By in European migrant crisis, Fidesz, poll Leave a comment

The survey unit of Hungarian research company Tárki recently released polling results showing that support for the Fidesz–Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP) governing alliance jumped just over ten percentage points among respondents stating a party preference and around five percentage points among all respondents over the past three months (source in Hungarian). Since the issue of the 2015 Migration Crisis has totally dominated politics and the media in Hungary during this period, one must assume that the hardline anti-migration response of the Fidesz-KDNP government Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to the crisis is responsible for the sharp increase in popularity that the governing alliance has recorded in all party-preference surveys conducted this autumn (source in Hungarian).

The Tárki polling results reveal that Fidesz-KDNP generated its rise in support primarily to the detriment of the three main democratic opposition parties—the Hungarian Socialist Party, Politics Can Be Different and the Democratic Coalition—rather than to that of radical-nationalist party Jobbik. Below are bar graphs showing the results of the Tárki party-preference polls taken in the months of April, July and October of 2015.

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MSZP = Hungarian Socialist Party; LMP = Politics Can Be Different; DK = Democratic Coalition; Együtt = Together; PM = Dialogue for Hungary.

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The Röszke Telephones

October 10, 2015 By in European migrant crisis, Hungarian Television, propaganda Leave a comment
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“Shocking images on abandoned telephones”: Hungarian Television shows its anonymous source (Orange Files screenshot).

On October 9, 2015, state-run Hungarian Television broadcast a report on images and videos allegedly found on telephones that migrants discarded after crossing into Hungary near the village of Röszke along the Hungarian-Serbian border earlier this year. Hungarian Television reported three days previously that it had received the telephones containing the images from an anonymous resident of Röszke who had “helped the authorities as a civilian volunteer in their work at the border” (source in Hungarian from 7:54).

The October 9 Hungarian Television report is typical of those that Hungary’s state-run media has broadcast regarding the Great Migration regularly over the past few months in order to support the Orbán government’s contention that migrants represent a grave immediate threat to the security of Hungary and all of Europe.

See entire post.

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