From The National (UAE)
Muslims attending prayers at Hungary’s largest mosque have been physically abused, had their cars set alight and been the targets of anti-migration protests. They expect things to get worse.
In the run-up to April national elections, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has ramped up his rhetoric for a campaign set to be dominated by migration – and Hungary’s tiny Muslim population is feeling the backlash.
Critics believe that Mr Orban is playing an anti-migrant card to tap the insecurities of Hungarians after centuries of history marked by invasion and occupation to win a third consecutive term in office. He has become notorious throughout Europe – and feted by the far-right – for building a border fence along the country’s southern borders to keep the migrants out.
“He [Orban] thinks it’s just a game but we’re the ones that are suffering from it,” said Sultan Bolek, a Hungarian historian.
The concerns are no more keenly felt than in this Budapest suburb where some 500 people gather for Friday prayers at the anonymous former offices of an executive toy maker that were converted into a mosque in 2011.
Some of those who turn up expect “pogroms and killings” before the country’s leadership reacts to increasing anti-Muslim sentiment, said Sultan Sulok, the president of the Organisation of Muslims in Hungary.
Mr Orban’s increasingly hostile stance against Muslims followed the 2015 migration crisis when hundreds of thousands of people passed through the central European nation and headed to countries such as Germany, Sweden and the UK.
Mr Orban – who has been premier since 2010 – has previously described the arrival of asylum seekers in Europe as a “poison” with every migrant posing a “public security and terror risk”.
His administration has pushed back against European Union plans for countries to take in a quota of migrants to relieve the pressure on Italy and Greece.
The government’s campaign to oppose the plan led to an uptick of violence against the estimated 40,000 Muslim population, though no official figures have been compiled.
“The political rhetoric was focussed against Muslims and that’s when the incidents increased and the beatings happened,” Mr Sulok told The National in his office at the Mosque of Muslims in Hungary.
Trouble started soon after it was built in 2011 when four men stoned and torched cars outside during Ramadan prayers.
