ソロスの影響下のNGOが追放され始めている。多額のファンドを使った違法移民爆弾の製造は許されない。
Hungary is taking action against NGOs, using increasingly stringent laws and dubious methods. In a major shift, Open Society Foundations — backed by George Soros — has decided to move to Berlin. Keno Verseck reports.
An era is quietly coming to an end at number 19 Molnar Street, Budapest. This is where US-Hungarian stock exchange billionaire George Soros' Open Society Foundations (OSF) had its European headquarters. Now, in the rooms of the inconspicuous office building, files are being packed and computers are being taken offline. The society is moving. In conversations, employees try to sound matter-of-fact. But everyone is aware that this move marks the beginning of a major shift.
The organization will be moving its headquarters to Berlin on August 31. As the OSF leadership announced in May, the reason for this is the "repressive political and legal climate in Hungary." This concludes what began here 35 years ago. Soros has had a presence in the Hungarian capital since 1984, first supporting anti-Communist opposition activists and, after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, financially supporting civil society activities in the entire Central and Southeastern European region.
"It is important to emphasize that although we will be based in Berlin, we will not be abolishing our support for the region," says Peter Nizak, who has been a member of the foundation for many years and is head of the OSF Central Eastern Europe Program. "But it's true that, in fact, a chapter is drawing to a close."
NGOs allegedly promoting 'illegal migration'
The OSF move to Berlin is symptomatic of the pressure being exerted on civil society organizations in Hungary and elsewhere in the region. They are one of the last and most important pillars of independent state and power control, and thus pose a considerable obstacle for leaders like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose remodeling of the state has authoritarian features and is accompanied by corruption and a lack of transparency.
At the end of June, Orban had a package of legislative and constitutional amendments passed in parliament, bearing the name "Stop Soros," which provide a means of criminalizing civil society organizations should they "promote illegal migration." At the same time, restrictions on asylum law, freedom of assembly and a new branch of the judiciary were introduced. Ten days ago, the Hungarian parliament also passed a special immigration tax, a 25-percent penalty tax on all NGO revenues that "promote illegal migration."
These are only the latest measures taken against civil society organizations by the Orban government. Four years ago, in July 2014, Orban announced in his now-famous Bad Tusnad speech on the establishment of an illiberal state in Hungary, that he would introduce harsh measures against civil activists.
At the same time, Hungarian authorities had been harassing civil society organizations for months over alleged tax offenses. This culminated in September 2014, with a spectacular police raid against the NGO Okotars and the arrest of its director, Veronika Mora. Since 2017, non-governmental organizations in Hungary that receive more than €23,000 ($26,600) annually from foreign donors must declare themselves as being "financed from abroad."
Psychological pressure
Parallel to such legal actions, civil society organizations are also increasingly being put under psychological pressure. Before the parliamentary election in early April, the government newspaper Magyar Idok published alleged investigative reports which claimed that "Soros activists" wanted to provoke subversive unrest in Hungary. After the election, Figyelo, a magazine with close government ties, published a list of 200 "Soros mercenaries," including the entire staff of several NGOs.
For the last several weeks, activists from the Fidelitas Youth Association of Orban's ruling party Fidesz have been gathering in front of offices of organizations such as Amnesty International or the Hungarian Helsinki Committee and vandalizing their entrances with red stickers bearing a warning: "This organization supports immigration."
オルバーン・ヴィクトル（ハンガリー語: Orbán Viktor、1963年5月31日 - ）は、ハンガリーの政治家。1998年から2002年まで首相を務め、2010年5月から再度首相を務めている。
2014年4月6日の国民議会選挙において、フィデスは圧勝し、オルバーンは首相に再選された。2018年4月8日の国民議会選挙でも圧勝し3選。
