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She worked as a journalist in Egypt before and during the Revolution of 2011, when she got an arm and hand broken by the riot police, who also sexually assaulted her, she recalls. Her lawyer believes it was censorship-motivated. Today the author of Headscarves and Hymens lives and works in New York City and Cairo, being a contributor to media like The New York Times or The Guardian.

Eltahawy defines herself as a feminist of Muslim descent born in Egypt. She spoke to Salam Plan in Madrid’s Casa Árabe, during her Spanish tour this week to present her new book, The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls (Beacon Press), which is coming out next Septembre. It is her manifesto against what she calls “universal patriarchy”.

What does Donald Trump mean to you?

Donald Trump for me is a fascist fuck. Donald Trump is a white supremacist, who has been clear all along about his misogyny, his racism, his islamophobia, his homophobia… he’s a whole host of discrimination and bigotry. He was elected by a mostly racist body of American voters and he represents today the growing rise of global authoritarianism that has -at his core- patriarchy, a patriarchy which uses all these forms of oppression.

So, Donald Trump for me is a very dangerous man, but he’s one of many. He’s probably the most powerful of the many, but you have his equivalent with Bolsonaro in Brazil, Duterte in the Philippines, Orbán in Hungary and so on and so forth. And then you have Sisi in Egypt and Mohammed Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, when we talk about authoritarianism.

“Donald Trump is a very dangerous man, but he’s one of many. You have his equivalent with Bolsonaro in Brazil, Duterte in the Philippines, Orbán in Hungary, Sisi in Egypt, Mohamed Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia…”

Do you think everyone who voted for Trump agrees with his rhetoric and all these ideas?

Well, 60 million Americans voted for Donald Trump. What is especially shocking to me is that the majority of white women voters voted for Donald Trump, knowing that he had been accused by at least twelve women of sexual assault, and knowing his rhetoric, that is racist, misogynist, homophobic, islamophobic and all of it. So, if you voted for Donald Trump, you are a racist.

Many Americans get very upset when you say that and they say: “No, I’m not a racist” and they give you a whole bunch of excuses. But you understood very well that you voted for a racist, and if you voted for a racist, you are a racist.

What lessons could the other politicians draw from his success?

Unfortunately, the Democratic Party in the United States for too long has been moving towards the right, because they believe that the best way to win more votes is to bring people over from the Republican party. This is a disaster, it’s a mistake. Some politicians are learning sadly, and you see this in Europe too, that they should co-opt the rhetoric that has won the election for the Republican party.

But I’m seeing now more and more younger politicians and politicians of colour, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , Ilhan Olmar, Rashida Tlaib… especially the women of colour, who have been elected to the US Congress, I’m seeing that they represent a wonderful and refreshing and much needed antidote to the hate of the Republican Party and to the mistakes of the Democratic Party.

“The women of colour, who have been elected to the US Congress, represent a wonderful and refreshing and much needed antidote to the hate of the Republican Party and to the mistakes of the Democratic Party”

The Republican Party has been openly racist for decades. Donald Trump did not invent racism. He’s not the first American politician to run on these platforms. Donald Trump is the fruition of many years of white supremacy, islamophobia, capitalism… many, many other forms of bigotry and discrimination. He’s just especially avert about them.

At the same time, the Democratic Party has been dominated by white politicians and has not fought islamophobia in any effective way. In fact, when we talk specifically about islamophobia, I believe that one of the biggest mistakes of the Democratic Party is that the only time up until now, when they speak about Muslims, is when they talk about American Muslims in the military and in the police.

Also about Obama not being a Muslim.

Exactly, yes. The Democratic Party wants to play the good Muslim card, by saying ‘Muslims are us as well: they also fought for us in Afghanistan and Irak. This is not the kind of opposition to islamophobia that I support. I don’t want to be called a good Muslim or a bad Muslim, I want to be called an American citizen who has every right to be in this country, regardless of whether I’m in your military or not.

American politics has a massive problem with white supremacy, especially, and discrimination of all kinds. (…) Muslims in America were punished for 9/11, and we had no role in 9/11. But the Bush Administration launched two wars against Muslim majority countries and, inside the United States, launched the Patriot Act, which targeted specifically Muslims. And so you saw the rise of islamophobia.

“I don’t want to be called a good or a bad Muslim, I want to be called an American citizen who has every right to be in this country”

Where is the limit between freedom of expression or criticism and islamophobia?

I believe in the right to offend, but I believe in the right to protest offence. When we talk about the First Amendment in the United States, it protects you from the Government controlling your speech, but cooperations can and do. And the media does have its own kind of self-control in a way.

Speech has incited hate and violence in Boznia, Rwanda, in New Zealand… I’m against censorship, but I recognize the power of speech, and I think it’s imperative on us to protest hate speech with all the methods that we have at our disposal because people are being killed (…).

I was a journalist in the Middle East for ten years. I’m against censorship, because where I come from [Egypt], it is used to silence us, because once you give the state the power to censor, at first you think it is for a good reason, to protect us, but then the line gets bigger and bigger, and that is what happened in the United States with the Patriot Act.

>>>You may also read: Expert warns about more terror attacks against Muslims if politicians don’t tackle islamophobia<<<

The week after the New Zealand attacks, Islamophobia cases in the UK rose by almost 600%, according to the Tell Mama organization, which holds the records for it. How would you tackle hate speech? Media are always pointed at, but what about politicians and institutions?

I think politicians must stop using lazy stereotypes of people in a hateful rhetoric for votes. [They] must stop monopolizing any kind of fearmongering that they have used for a long time to portray people as ‘under attack’ or to say ‘these people are coming to take your jobs, to rape your women’.

I think that the media must start portraying a more complicated image of people who are not white. I think that the media is too lazy to portray people. They give you all these very, very reductive images of people. So, you’re not allowed to be a full human being.

Media news rooms are very white. The media must start hiring people of different backgrounds, because they will understand reporting on all of those communities in a much more complicated and rich way.

I think the aim of hate speech is to dehumanize, because if you dehumanize you make it easier to attack. And complication is the best way to humanize someone. Allow people to be complicated.

“The aim of hate speech is to dehumanize, because if you dehumanize you make it easier to attack. And complication is the best way to humanize someone. Allow people to be complicated”

What do you think about New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s reaction to the recent attacks?

I think she’s done some very good things and I think she’s done some very lazy stereotypical things. I think the fact that she refuses to say the name of the man who committed the massacre is very good. I think that the fact that she and the government worked very quickly to change the legislation on semi-automatic rifles and guns generally is very good and necessary, and a lesson to the United States.

I think the compassion that she showed to the Muslim community when she went [to support them]… she looked genuine. But I reject anyone who is not Muslim using the hijab as a form of solidarity, for many reasons. Number one: the hijab is not a gimmick or a toy that you put on one day and you take off the next day (..). It’s an empty gesture. It is much more meaningful to show solidarity by fighting white supremacy every day.

Number two: as a Muslim woman who fought for eight years to take off my hijab [in Egypt], and as a Muslim woman who is in a family where my mother wears hijab for piety, my sister wears it for identity -she wants to say ‘fuck you’ to the racists- and I reject hijab and all forms of modesty… So, when I see white non-Muslim women putting on the hijab, I see that they have chosen a sight that is not mine (…).  I would prefer instead of wearing a headscarf, when they’re out in public, that they support Muslim visible women. If you see a Muslim visible woman being attacked verbally or physically, intervene and help that woman.

“I’m a Muslim woman who is in a family where my mother wears hijab for piety, my sister wears it for identity -she wants to say ‘fuck you’ to the racists- and I reject hijab and all forms of modesty”

People are sometimes surprised or do not believe that Muslim women can be feminists.

I keep my feminism and Islam separate, because for me anything that hurts women and girls, I will fight, regardless of where it comes from. Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, secular politics… I will fight patriarchy everywhere.

I believe the Abrahamic religions -Judaism, Christianity and Islam- are very patriarchal and we have to fight the patriarchy inside those religions. But I also believe there is patriarchy outside those religions.

I think that Islamic feminism in this sense is useful, and I am not an Islamic feminist. I have used their work to give to Muslim women a weapon who write to me and say ‘I want something that will help me fight x, y and z’. (…) If a woman says to me, “my religion is helping me to be more feminist”, I want to have all the weapons at her disposal to fight patriarchy, because I want to fight patriarchy wherever it exists.

You just said you are not an Islamic feminist. How would you define yourself?

I’m a feminist, I was born in Egypt and I’m of Muslim descent. This is how I usually present myself, and I think that makes it complicated enough and that’s all you need know [she giggles].

Feminist Mona Eltahawy thinks patriarchy needs to be tackled universally. © Salam Plan

Why do you say ‘Arab countries need a sexual revolution’ in your book Headscarves and Hymens?

When the revolutions began in Tunisia in 2010 and then spread to many other countries, including my country of birth, the revolutions were men and women together fighting the state. I wanted to ask in my book: when we go home, after we all have risked our lives together… Are the men that we stood shoulder to shoulder with against the state, are they revolutionaries at home, in the street? And we found in many cases the revolutionaries have a patriarch inside them.

Without the social revolution against the dictator in the public space and the sexual revolution against the dictator in the bedroom, the political revolution against the dictator in the palace will fail.

[In] Egypt right now, the political revolution is stuck, because it is one group of men fighting another group of men for a small piece of power: the military and the Muslim Brotherhood. I’m not interested in this, I’m interested in this revolution in the street and the revolution in the bedroom [which] -together- will make possible a much more comprehensive form of liberation on the state level as well.

What is the main lesson you have learned throughout your years of journalism and activism?

To stay angry and to recognize that the revolution lives inside you. So that way, wherever you go around the world, that internal revolution finds the various forms of oppression that patriarchy co-opts and utilizes. I often say that my goal is to destroy patriarchy all over the world (…). The tattoos which I have on my arm [, one of them says]: ‘we are the ones we have been waiting for’.

Don’t you get tired of staying angry?

[She giggles and then gets serious again]. No, not really, because it really does fuel me and I can use it everywhere I go. And for my next book I use anger as what I call one of the necessary sins. Because women are discouraged of being angry. It’s one attribution we’re not allowed to be by patriarchy.

What other six “necessary sins” do you talk about in your new book?

These are attributes that patriarchy does not want women and girls to want to do or to be: anger, attention seeking, profanity, ambition, power, violence and lust. Each of the chapters is about one of these sins and I write about why those sins are important in the fight against patriarchy.

I call this fight “feminism in 3D”: defying, disobeying and disrupting patriarchy. And it’s not about the Middle East or North Africa, it’s about the world. It’s about how patriarchy is universal. And I use stories and examples from feminism fights from around the world: Uganda, South Africa, South Korea, Argentina, India, Ireland… as a way of showing the feminist international revolution that targets patriarchy around the world. So, it’s like my feminist manifesto [she giggles].

I believe Judaism, Christianity and Islam are very patriarchal and we have to fight the patriarchy inside those religions. But I also believe there is patriarchy outside those religions. It’s universal

And how do you imagine Egypt and the US, the places you know better, in ten years’ time?

One of the things that gave me hope in the United States lately is what I was mentioning earlier about the election of these women of colour. I think they have come to American politics and really turned it upside down (…).

I believe the revolution, everywhere in the world, comes from the margins. It doesn’t come from the majority; the majority is too comfortable and wants to hold to the status quo.

In the Middle East and North Africa, Egypt now, including Saudi Arabia too, I really believe that feminism and talking and sexual ownership of our bodies -be it of feminist discourse or LGBTQ discourse-, so queer groups, who are increasingly visible -in Tunisia, in Lebanon they have been for a while now, and in Egypt we have something called the Alliance of Queer Egyptians now-…

So, in the Middle East and North Africa, [I imagine] an increasingly feminist-queer identified struggle; in the United States, an increasingly feminist of colour struggle will be the places of the margins that will influence society at large. They give me optimism, because I’m a tendentious optimist.

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La entrada Mona Eltahawy: “If you voted for Donald Trump, you are a racist” se publicó primero en Salam Plan.

La entrada Hungarian party Fidesz suspended from the European People’s Party until further notice se publicó primero en Salam Plan.

Fox defends George Soros against “many unfounded conspiracy theories”.

The billionaire advocates for the rights of migrants and minorities, ranging from LBGTQ to Muslims, through its Open Society Foundations. These aim to “build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens”.

Donald Trump accused him of organizing the demonstration against the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in Washington DC and stated protesters were “paid professionals” who got the money from Soros “and others”.

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After the report of an explosive device in Soros mailbox emerged, Fox News used the opportunity to clarify that he is “subject to many unfounded conspiracy theories”, such as financing the march of migrants from centralamerican Honduras crossing Mexico towards the States. It is a similar accusation to the ones the Hungarian billionaire faces in his country of origin from its prime minister, Viktor Orbán, himself.

Meanwhile, Hungarian media outlets which favour Orbán -such as Magyar Idök, Magyar Hírlap, Faktor or Origo, had not informed about the bomb package against Soros and Orbán had not said anything either by the time this piece was redacted. Soros has been a target of Orbáns policies in the last years to the extent that his Governments itself speaks about its “Stop Soros” legislative package to tackle migration and refugees.

The European Parliament recently voted in favour of applying sanctions against Orbáns Government as it sees “a clear risk of serious violations” of the European Union’s values, due among other issues, to its media censorship or its treatment to immigrants. The European People’s Party members -to which Orbán’s Fidesz belongs- had freedom to vote and many of them voted against him, included its president, Manfred Weber.

The offices of Soros’s Open Society in Budapest have had to move to Berlin.

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La entrada Fox News says George Soros is “subject of many unfounded conspiracy theories” from the right se publicó primero en Salam Plan.

The proposal was approved with 448 votes to 197 (with 48 abstentions). To succeed, it required an absolute majority of the European Parliament (376) and two thirds of the votes cast, excluding the abstentions. It is the first time such a situation has occurred. Even the chairman of the European People’s Party, Manfred Weber, voted to trigger article 7, although he gave permission to each EMP to vote freely.

This decision means the EP urges the Council of the EU – formed by the ministers of European governments – to act against Hungary in the face of what it considers “a systemic threat to its founding values”. These values, reflected in Article 2 of the EU Treaty, include respect for democracy, equality, the rule of law and human rights.

“The vote is a clear defeat for the Hungarian government and its illusion of ‘remodelling’ the European People’s Party”

— Edit Inotai, Centre for Euro-Atlantic Integration and Democracy

“The vote is a clear defeat for the Hungarian government and its illusion of ‘remodelling’ the European People’s Party,” Edit Inotai, analyst of the Centre for Euro-Atlantic Integration and Democracy (CEID), considers. “His argument saying that the European Parliament wants to punish Hungary for having an antimigration Government doesn’t work in Europe. The ‘Sargentini report’ [which was voted] critizices the Government in twelve points and only one of them is related to migration.”

Parliament’s key concerns generate a long list and relate to:

• the functioning of the constitutional and electoral system,
• the independence of the judiciary,
• freedom of expression,
• academic freedom,
• freedom of religion,
• freedom of association,
• the right to equal treatment,
• the rights of persons belonging to minorities, including Roma and Jews,
• the fundamental rights of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, and
• economic and social rights
• corruption and conflicts of interest,
• privacy and data protection.

Among other issues, Viktor Orbán has always cast the suspicion of terrorism on asylum seekers arriving in Hungary and the rest of Europe in recent years. His administration built up fences to avoid a large arrival of these persons.

And in August of this year the NGO Human Rights Watch reported that the Hungarian authorities did not provide the necessary food to the asylum seekers whose petition they had rejected at the border. This happened, while these people were being held in Magyar detention centers.

He does neither make a difference between refugees and economic migrants, to whom international law confers very different rights and forces the reception of those fleeing from a situation that puts their lives at risk. International law also establishes a whole process with guarantees before deciding whether a person should be a refugee or not and thus avoid the so-called “pull backs” at the borders.

“The government firmly rejects the principle that the current migration should be seen as a human right,” government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said a month before the elections in Hungary last spring. Fidesz, Viktor Orbán’s party, won with 49% of the votes.

>>> You may also read: This is why hate speech is so successful in Hungary<<<

“It’s a nasty surprise for Orbán that his supporters in the EPP, especially Weber and the Germans, voted against him”, Inotai notes. She forsees Fidesz’s exit from the European People’s Party in the near future to come together with the extreme right parties. But she warns that would not be such a good measure for the EPP, which would loose twelve of its representatives in the European Parliament.

‘Sargentini’s report’

The European Parliament voted its agreement with the report of the Dutch MEP for The Greens Judith Sargentini, who has been working on it for months.

“The European Parliament sends out an important message: We stand up for the rights of all Europeans, including Hungarian citizens and we defend our European values,” Sargentini said. “Now it is up to the European leaders to take their responsibility and stop watching from the sidelines as the rule of law is destroyed in Hungary. This is unacceptable for a Union that is built on democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights.”

“Orbán and his spokesmen will behave as if nothing had happened. Hate speech and propaganda won’t change, but I’m sure they are a little scared”

— László Cselényi, former head of the Hungarian international public TV

Everyone agrees that this Wednesday’s vote is a warning to other European governments going in the same direction as Orbán is. But its practical consequences remain to be seen. For László Cselényi, former head of the Hungarian international television Duna TV, “Orbán and his spokesmen will obviously behave as if nothing had happened. Persons who may critize them will be called communists and servers of [George] Soros, [Hungarian tycoon contrary to Orbán with whom he has an open confrontation]. ”

Csenényi believes that “hate speech and propaganda won’t change” in a country where there is practically no traditional mass media which remain independent. He believes that the Magyar president will “back down” on some specific decisions to calm the mood in the EU, such as the closure of the CEU university. But little more.

“Sargentini’s criticism has come at an appropriate time and is justified, but it won’t have any positive consequences on Hungary’s domestic policy in the near future,” he says. At the same time, the former head of public television concedes: “I’m sure that [Orbán and his team] are a little scared.”

Will there be sanctions now?

If the application of article 7 were carried out, sanctions would be imposed on the Orbán government, which could lose its right to vote in the decisions of the European Council (the heads of state or government of the 28). French presidente, Emmanuel Macron, welcomed yesterday’s vote. But European legislation provides for a dialogue with the Member State concerned – in this case, Hungary – to avoid reaching this situation.

The proposal for a Council decision is now forwarded to the Member States, which must vote. They will need a majority of four fifths to support the ‘Sargentini report’. The Hungarian Government has the right to restate its arguments before the Council, as it has done this Wednesday before the European Parliament.

The Council may then make recommendations to Hungary “to counther the risk” of violation of the founding values instead of directly putting sanctions in place, explains the press release. In a later stage, the European Council can rule on the “existence in Hungary of a serious and persistent breach of the rule of law, democracy and fundamental rights”. But it must be agreed unanimously and passing through the European Parliament again. Only then could the sanctions take place.

* Article updated in a second version to include Edit Inotai’s analysis.

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La entrada Orbán’s Hungary suffers its worst defeat to date… but will there be real consequences? se publicó primero en Salam Plan.

A group of grannies agrees to go together to the market in their town because they are afraid of immigrants coming to rape them. It is not a fictional scene. It is what is really happening in Hungary, as described by Edit Inotai, an analyst at the Center for Euro-Atlantic Integration and Democracy (CEID) in Hungary, on a telephone conversation with Salam Plan. She cannot help but laughing at a situation that seems ridiculous to her. “There are not even immigrants here,” she says.

László Cselényi, former director of the Hungarian international television Duna TV, criticizes that there is no real government programme. “They are based on exploiting fear of the unknown, fostering hatred towards other religions and cultures,” he argues.

More and more Hungarians agree with the extreme defense of Hungarian culture as they think they could be facing a flood of illegal immigrants who are potential terrorists because they come from countries with a Muslim majority, as Orban’s government puts it. According to it, thousands of them are waiting on the other side of the border fence raised during the European refugee crisis to cross it as soon as they can. Orbán and his party, Fidesz, have been repeating this idea of ​​the ‘invading threat’ for years.

“It’s more of a cultural thing, to maintain the European society. I don’t think we Hungarians have a strong Christian faith, like the Poles,” Inotai points out. “I also have conservative friends who travel a lot abroad and say they see a lot of Muslim people and tell me: ‘we don’t want a country with such diversity'”, adds the analyst.

In words of the government’s spokesman, Zoltan Kovacs, the people who would arrive in Hungary should the Executive accept the current quota of about 1,200 refugees or future quotas, would just bring “problems” with them. Orbán’s team does not distinguish between asylum seekers and economic migrants, so Kovacs denies their admittance as a human rights issue. “The government firmly rejects the principle that current migration should be seen as a human right,” he recently said.

“The government firmly rejects the principle that current migration should be seen as a human right”

The prime minister was re-elected last Sunday with 49% of the votes and a 70% of participation to the surprise of researchers, acknowledges Inotai, who thought that high participation would favor the opposition. In addition, another 20% of the votes was taken by Jobbik, the party which formerly was the far-right-wing representative in the country and which, for these elections, tried to swap into moderation and snatch votes from Fidesz.

Orbán said in an interview with the German newspaper Bild last January that for him, the refugees “are not refugees, but Muslim invaders”. He argued that is the reason why many Syrians had tried to reach prosperous Germany before going through “stable” countries like Hungary. It was in 2015 that many asylum seekers actually passed through the Magyar country, but most of them stayed there only during the days that the Orbán Executive prevented them from taking trains at the Keleti station in Budapest to continue their way out of the country.

“All terrorists are basically immigrants,” he said in another interview, this one with Politico in 2015, although it is an idea sustained over time by the Hungarian leader.

Propaganda without effective counter-campaign

This barrage of statements against foreigners, especially against Muslim foreigners, found almost no ideas or contrary explanations in the public domain. Little did it matter that most of the terrorists who have attacked in recent years in Europe were born or raised here, like those who killed in Spain in 2017 or like the terrorists of the Paris attacks in 2015. Neither did it matter that the vast majority of terrorists had nothing to do with the hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers who arrived in the midst of the refugee crisis in Europe – although some did get away, like the teenager who attacked with an ax in a Bavarian commuter train.

It did not even matter that for mere practical reasons it might be interesting to host future workers in an economy that is certainly going well with only around 5% of unemployment, which nevertheless requires labor force in sectors such as construction, health or education, according to Inotai. She recognizes that the Hungarian language is very complicated to learn for foreigners, though.

And, while for the elections of 2014 some media had already closed and some NGOs critical of the government had already been raided in their headquarters, for this election the media and political opposition had virtually disappeared. Cselényi recalls that a friend of Orbán named Mészáros Lörinc owns 18 local and regional newspapers “that disseminate the same propaganda content”. Inotai adds that although there is still an important critical newspaper in Budapest, regional radio stations are also uncritical and only on the internet there is a broader spectrum with divergent opinions to those of Orbán. But older people in the provinces do not access these media, she thinks.

‘Serious risk for the rule of law’

This week the Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Judith Sargentini presented a report on the political situation in Hungary in view of the possibility that the Magyar State is failing to comply with the principles of the European Union of respect for human dignity, democracy, plurality, tolerance, etc. established in Article 2 of the Lisbon Treaty.

“Since 2012, the (Hungarian) Constitution has been changed six times. Justice has lost independence in favor of control of the Executive”, the MEP of The Greens highlighted at a press conference. She also pointed to issues such as the closure of media, a “new legislation that affects the freedom of religion, with already registered churches that were removed from registration,” or harassment of some NGOs and problems for freedom of expression.

Despite accusations by Fidesz’s MEPs of publishing the report four days after the elections in their country as a revenge, Sargentini stressed that she initially planned to publish it in March and it was precisely postponed not to interfere in the election campaign. In addition, she underlined that her report is based on facts documented by bodies outside the European Parliament, such as the United Nations or the Hungarian courts themselves.

An OSCE report on the 2014 elections already put in serious doubt the cleanliness of those elections, since Fidesz “enjoyed an undue advantage due to restrictive campaign regulations, biased media coverage and campaign activities that blurred the separation between the political party and the State”. On this occasion, the OSCE has emphasized that the news programmes on TV, for example, gave the government version and that the opposition had no real option to publicize its message.

The opposition does not want immigrants either

However, the opposition’s message would not have really refuted the anti-immigrant propaganda of Orbán’s team. For Inotai and Cselényi, there is no doubt that this year’s elections have suffered from a lack of plurality in speeches, not only because of the media panorama, but also because of the Hungarian opposition parties.

“The opposition parties ignored the issue of immigration – erroneously – to avoid falling into the trap of Fidesz. They did not dare to go against public opinion, given that they accused them of being agents in the service of foreign interests,” Cselényi explains.

“The opposition was very distressed about this topic. No one is really in favor of immigration, because society does not want it”

“The opposition was very distressed about this issue. No one is really in favor of immigration, because society does not want it,” Inotai says. There is another factor that explains the triumph of the speech of fear in Hungary, according to this expert. “It is not only the anti-Muslim propaganda, it is also the feudal situation of Hungary. The best results of Fidesz have been in the provinces, where they receive state aid with community work programmes. Many people live from it. They are very poor and in these areas there is no other work.”

The ‘Sargentini report’ now enters a period of amendments and will be finally voted on next September. In case of obtaining at least one third of the agreement of the European Parliament, Article 7 of the Lisbon Treaty will apply, which would lead to sanctions against the Magyars for violating the rule of law according to European regulations.

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La entrada This is why hate speech is so successful in Hungary se publicó primero en Salam Plan.