Already close to 20 prominent Hungarian human rights organizations, grassroots movements and activist groups have decided to protest together against the government’s plans for a fence on the border with Serbia and the tightening of asylum rules in Hungary. The groups, such as HCLU and the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, will gather together on Tuesday at 18:00 in front of the Basilika, in the center of Budapest. The organizers expect over 2000 people to join the walking protest and it’s highlight: breaking through a makeshift wall in order to reach the Parliament, where the finale of the demonstration will take place.

The Hungarian government recently announced that it plans to spend 6.6 billion forints on the construction of a fence on the Serbian border to keep asylum seekers and refugees from entering Hungary. A fence will make it much more difficult for people with a legitimate claim to asylum to reach a country in which they can get such protection. In Hungary getting protection has been made even more difficult by the amendments to the asylum law that the parliament passed last Monday. These amendments include proclaiming Serbia a safe third country and making it possible to categorically reject claims from people that traveled through safe third countries while also shortening the time the immigration office takes to screen asylum claims.

Over a thousand asylum seekers try to enter the European Union through Hungary on a daily basis. This has led to an incredible wave of humanitarian civilian response in the last two weeks: several Facebook groups from Szeged to Budapest have been set up to distribute food, water, clothes, shoes and information. At the same time people in Debrecen organized a demonstration against the government's xenophobic propaganda and the national consultation on migration and terrorism. The protest on Tuesday will voice this solidarity of Hungarians and show that, contrary to what the Hungarian Government keeps proclaiming, Hungary is not a xenophobic country. 

The organizations that are included so far are:


42 Közössége Association
Amnesty International Hungary
Artemisszió Foundation
Budapest Pride
Cordelia Foundation for the Rehabilitation of Torture Victims
Eleven Emlékmű
European Network Against Racism
HCLU
Human Platform
Hungarian Helsinki Committee
Jövőkerék Foundation
Közmunkás Mozgalom
Krétakör Foundation
Menedék Association
Szivárvány Misszió Foundation
Szubjektív Values Foundation
The City Is For All

The protest was initiated by the activist organization Migszol, Migrant Solidarity Group of Hungary.

MigSzol is a Hungarian, independent and informal activist group that works for the social and political rights of migrants of all kinds in Hungary. Other Migszol movements all over country are all independent from each other.

For more information please contact MigSzol at

[email protected]
Tel.: +36 20 28 67 987

A more nuanced look at this European dimension is largely absent from the migration debate in Hungary. For the government, the EU is the source of “permissive” migration policies. For those like MigSzol who oppose the government’s policies, the EU is also not  a source of hope given that the Union is the architect of the very policies that have created this “buffer zone” at Europe’s Southern and Eastern borders. Indeed, beyond criticizing the government’s fear-mongering rhetoric  - which harnesses xenophobia and islamophobia in order to engineer a moral panic in Hungarian society - we also have to target the even bigger culprit: the Dublin Regulation. 

The Dublin Regulation forces people to apply for asylum in the country where they have first entered the European Union, and consequently forces recognized refugees to stay, work and integrate in that country. It is very difficult for migrants and refugees to find a place to live in Hungary. So difficult that an increasing number of them, regardless of legal status, choose living in Western Europe without papers over being homeless on the streets of Budapest. 

At the same time the Dublin Regulation effectively robs migrants of the kinship- and friendship-networks they have in other European countries. Searching a refuge is in most cases an unpredictable journey, not a planned-out trip. Given the precarious routes available to them, refugees are unable to choose their country of entry and, given the regulations, stay. In short: if there was no Dublin, there would be no excuse for the fence as there would be no buffer zones, and Hungary would not be the factory of sans papiers that it is now.

Thus, we face a struggle on two fronts: against the outrageously racist policies and rhetoric of the Hungarian government and Jobbik, as well as against the Dublin Regulation. The latter is a struggle that has long been staged by fellow activists in other European countries. As Migszol, we think that it is high time for Hungary to think and talk about Europe’s involvement in perpetuating a life-endangering regime of access to asylum. 

All this said, let’s end on a positive, if challenging, note. Following the extremely successful counter-campaign by the Hungarian Two Tailed Dog Party and Vastagbor, a campaign that mobilized thousands of Hungarians, we simply refuse to see Hungary as a xenophobic and racist society. The challenge, then, is the following: how do we mobilize all this energy to fight against the government's policy as well as the Dublin regulation?