Anti-immigrant government billboards in Hungary

The Hungarian government spends over EUR one million on anti-immigrant billboards that are regularly defaced or torn off by those who consider this campaign xenophobic. The government claims the Hungarian language posters are to deter immigrants from coming to Hungary.

Six
opposition activists who defaced the Orbán government’s billboards were arrested at dawn on Sunday after undercover police units were ordered watch many of the anti-immigrant posters put up all over the Hungarian capital.

The use of police personnel for such activities caused an uproar in Hungary - as did the placement of the billboards themselves. The posters address immigrants and call for them not to take the jobs of Hungarians "if you come to Hungary".

Since the billboards are all in Hungarian, analysts point out that the real target audience is not the illegal immigrants (who obviously do not understand Hungarian) but the right-wing voters whom the Orbán government, which has been sinking in the polls lately, tries to please with its tough anti-immigrant stance.

However, government spokesperson Zoltán Kovács claimed in a recent TV program that “through
its awareness raising campaign, the Hungarian government highlights one of the
most important problems facing Europe.”

Hungary's southern borders have recently the targets of tens of thousands of the refegees and illigal immigrants that the Orbán government says pose a threat to Hungarians. However, the immigrants do not seem to stay in the country, they head to Western Europe from here.