Four days after election victory of right-national Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, pressure on opponents in Hungary increases. The government-related weekly newspaper Figyelö published a list of 200 individuals who are supposedly part of network of US billionaire and philanthropist George Soros. Under title The people of speculator, paper lists leaders of various human rights organizations as well as professors of Budapest Central European University (CEU), founded by Soros. Among latter are also foreign teachers, such as Austrian political scientist Anton Pelinka.
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The newspaper writes that people on list are a part of those 2,000 “mercenaries” who work in Hungary “for Soros or organizations paid by him”. Figyelö is owned by historian and entrepreneur Maria Schmidt, who advises Orbán on issues of historical policy. The Fidesz party of head of government had reached a constitutional-changing two-thirds majority in parliamentary elections last Sunday.
In election campaign, Orbán had made migration to almost exclusive issue. He accused Soros of organising mass migration of Muslim immigrants to Europe. He did not put forward any evidence of this assertion.
Anti-Soros campaign stopped in meantime
Soros, a Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor, had made his fortune with stock market transactions. For several decades, he has been supporting initiatives and organizations worldwide that advocate democracy and human rights.
The propaganda of Orbán government against Soros has been taking years. At end of February this year it was stopped for a short time. In response to unexpected defeat in a mayoral election, head of government had anti-Soros campaign stopped. At that time, deputies and candidates of right-hand national government party, Fidesz, were given strict instructions from party headquarters to “not post any negative, defamatory materials in connection with Soros in social media”, opposition Daily newspaper Magyar Nemzet.
