In a controversial Facebook video entitled “How to Dismantle a Democracy”, The Economist listed Prime Minister Viktor Orbán among a ‘group of autocrats undermining democracy. They claimed that “Prime Minister Viktor Orban warns that Muslim migrants will destroy Hungary.”
Responding to the allegations in a letter to the editor, Government Spokesperson Zoltán Kovács points out that Prime Minister Orbán has never made any of these comments and provides some historical background as to why Hungarians are particularly sensitive to preserving their cultural identity.
“In fact, the prime minister has said”, Kovács quotes PM Orbán, “that ‘migration poses a threat to Europe’s public safety, welfare and Christian culture’ and cautioned that ‘we shouldn’t forget that the people who are coming here grew up in a different religion and represent a completely different culture.”
He argues that Hungarians, having endured two world wars and almost fifty years of communism over the last century, have every right for putting cultural preservation among their top priorities.
Although the situation might look slightly different viewed from an editor’s office in London, the spokesman writes, he recalls that during the summer of 2015, before Hungary erected the southern border fence, some 400,000 migrants crossed Hungary’s Schengen border illegally. As Prime Minister Orbán said at the time it almost felt like an “invasion” and “the citizens of Hungary, like many citizens of Europe, wanted it stopped.”
“Our parliamentary elections in April were a de facto referendum on this government’s immigration policy, and the results gave the ruling coalition another two-thirds majority,” he added concluding that Hungary’s tough stance on immigration reflects the will of its citizens.
For the full text of the letter scroll down on this link.