EUROPE-MIGRANTS/HUNGARY-POSTERS 'Come to Hungary, we've got jobs in London!' Group mocks Hungary's anti-immigrant drive

Record ID: 147834

  • Title: EUROPE-MIGRANTS/HUNGARY-POSTERS 'Come to Hungary, we've got jobs in London!' Group mocks Hungary's anti-immigrant drive
  • Date: 10th July 2015
  • Summary: BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (JULY 7, 2015) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) FOUNDER OF TWO-TAILED DOG PARTY GERGO KOVACS SAYING: "We collected money for two weeks and we could collect 33 million forints and from this money we can buy 900 billboards, which are almost the same amount that the government has. And many billboards of the government have been torn down or were defaced so I
  • Embargoed: 25th July 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Hungary
  • Country: Hungary
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA42E8JDZIK9JEN29TZGTHGQ6K3
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: A spoof Hungarian political party is mocking the government's anti-immigrant rhetoric, suggesting its first priority should be to encourage droves of Hungarian job-seekers who have emigrated to come home.
    Right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban has raised a furore at home and abroad with tough rhetoric on immigration at a time when his Fidesz party has been haemorrhaging support to the far-right, eurosceptic, anti-foreigner Jobbik party.
    Orban linked migration to terrorism in a voter survey on the subject, drawing a condemnation by the United Nations human rights office.
    Orban's government also has launched a billboard campaign suggesting immigration threatens jobs with slogans like "If you come to Hungary you cannot take away Hungarians' jobs" or "If you come to Hungary you must respect our culture".
    To Gergo Kovacs, a former street artist who founded the spoof group Two-Tailed Dog Party, this was the last straw.
    He began a two-week crowd-funding drive last month to fund his own giant posters, poking fun at the government's inability to stop Hungarian job seekers from emigrating at a time when it wants to stop immigration.
    "The main issue is the way of how they are spending the people's money on a campaign which tells us who to hate. And I think the government should campaign for the social solidarity, not against it, so that's why we made this anti-anti-immigration campaign," Kovacs said.
    The posters were an instant hit on Facebook and within two days Kovacs had collected more than 25 million forints ($90,000). By the end of the two weeks they raised 33 million forints ($114,500).
    "We collected money for two weeks and we could collect 33 million forints and from this money we can buy 900 billboards, which are almost the same amount that the government has. And many billboards of the government have been torn down or were defaced so I think we have more billboards than the government," Kovacs said.
    Billboards appeared around Budapest and some countryside towns in early July and will stay on until August.
    "This government always campaigns, makes all these campaigns against social solidarity, so they were already against the homeless, against the gay, against the drug user so they always try to gain popularity from this no social solidarity which is a big mistake I guess," Kovacs said.
    Government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs, no relation to Gergo, said the official billboards were designed to boost participation in the immigration voter survey. It was sent to 8 million Hungarians and some 500,000 have returned it so far.
    "Xenophobia is no stronger in Hungary than in other EU nations," Kovacs said in an emailed response to Reuters.
    The central statistics office said that at least 31,500 Hungarians left the country in 2014, 46 percent more than in 2013. The pollster Tarki said one in ten Hungarians planned to emigrate, by far the highest figure since the 1989 fall of Communism.
    "The emigration is a much bigger problem here in Hungary than the immigration, so the government perhaps should have built a fence to the Hungary/Austria border to keep the Hungarians here," Kovacs said.
    Estimates vary about the number of Hungarians living abroad, but tens of thousands probably live in London alone. Kovacs says he will put up a giant poster in London and one already appeared in Vienna at the request of donors there.
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