In Hungary, the head of the local Raoul Wallenberg Association has been assaulted at a soccer match. Ferenc Orosz told MTI at a conference on hate speech on Monday that first he was verbally assaulted and then his nose was broken after a match at Budapest’s Puskas Stadium which he attended with his family on Sunday. Orosz said supporters near him were shouting chants in favor of former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and also the Nazi slogan “Sieg Heil”. When he asked them to stop he was threatened and called a “Jewish communist”.
At the end of the match, as he was leaving the stadium, two men blocked his way. One said, according to MTI: "It is Sieg Heil, even so” and the other hit Orosz, who was later hospitalized with a broken nose. Hungarian police have pressed charges against the assailant.
Orosz said he discharged himself from the hospital on Monday in order to speak at a conference on hate speech organized by the ombudsman. He told MTI he thought what had happened to him constituted a hate crime and that organizers or police should have removed the Nazi chanters from the arena.
Peter Feldmájer, head of the federation of Hungarian Jewish communities Mazsihisz, said that the incident was “a manifestation of intolerance in society”. Feldmajer told MTI that he found it “especially serious” that the leader of “an organization with such an undoubtedly positive message” should be assaulted. He said he trusted the attackers would soon be detained.
The Raoul Wallenberg Association was formed in tribute to Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg who saved the lives of thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust.
Jewish and rights groups say anti-Semitism remains a significant problem in Hungary. Orosz said he tried to silence the supporters at the game in the city's Ferenc Puskas Stadium. Some members of the group called him a "Jewish communist" and he was approached by two men afterwards, one of whom hit him. "Since Jobbik got into parliament (in 2010), hate speech has gained a lot more ground," Orosz told the 'Reuters' news agency on the sidelines of a conference about hate speech in Budapest on Monday.
Meanwhile, far-right campaigners say they are planning to stage a rally against Bolshevism and Zionism in Budapest on Saturday, the evening before the start of the Plenary Assembly meeting of the World Jewish Congress in the Hungarian capital which begins on Sunday night with a speech by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
