- Title: Hungary's Orban rejects "Sovietisation" by Brussels, defends nation state
- Date: 23rd October 2016
- Summary: PEOPLE HOLDING HUNGARIAN FLAG WITH HOLE IN THE MIDDLE, SYMBOL OF 1956 REVOLUTION MAN SEEN THROUGH HOLE OF FLAG
- Embargoed: 7th November 2016 16:49
- Keywords: Hungary Victor Orban 1956 anti-Communist uprising European Union Sovietisation
- Location: BUDAPEST, HUNGARY
- City: BUDAPEST, HUNGARY
- Country: Hungary
- Topics: Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA0045586KAV
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: At a commemoration of a 1956 anti-Communist uprising, Hungary's right-wing leader Viktor Orban said his country must stand up to Europe's "Sovietisation" and defend its borders against mass migration.
Orban, a critic of the European Union and an early opponent of the recent migration wave into the continent, said freedom in Europe depended on the nation state and Christian traditions.
People who love their freedom "must save Brussels from Sovietisation, from people who want to tell us who we should live with in our countries," the prime minister said to cheers from a crowd of several thousand.
A few hundred opposition protesters whistled loudly as Orban spoke, and brawls broke out in the crowd between his supporters and opponents.
"We cannot create freedom while this despicable leftist opposition exists," said Laszlo Barta, an Orban supporter with a Hungarian flag flung across his shoulders.
Along with other ex-Communist countries in eastern Europe, Hungary opposes a policy that would require all EU states to take in some of the hundreds of thousands of mainly Muslim migrants seeking asylum in the bloc after arriving last year.
Orban has led resistance to the stance taken by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has said EU states have an obligation to share the burden of taking in refugees.
He responded to the influx last year by sealing Hungary's southern borders with a razor-wire fence and deploying thousands of soldiers and police.
Polish President Andrzej Duda, the guest of honour at the commemoration, assured Hungarians of support from Warsaw. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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