The progressive Open Society Foundations, run by Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros, announced Monday it was taking the Hungarian government to court over its laws that seek to stop illegal mass migration on grounds that they deny civil society groups their ‘human rights’.
The OSF called on the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, to “defend Hungarian democracy” in a statement published Monday.
The pro-open borders civil society group alleges that “Hungary’s ‘Stop Soros’ legislation violates its rights to freedom of expression, association, and assembly that are guaranteed by Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights” and demands the laws are repealed.
The Stop Soros legislation, which came into effect on July 1st, makes it illegal to assist illegal migration, with penalties including a potential prison sentence. The laws also introduced a 25 percent tax on non-governmental organisations that support illegal migration, directly affecting the work of the OSF and its refugee rights group the Hungarian Helsinki Committee.
In response, a government spokesman told Reuters: “The government stands by the Stop Soros package of laws…. as the legislation serves the will of the Hungarian people, and the security of Hungary and Europe.”
“The Soros organisation attacks the Stop Soros package with all possible means as the legislation stands in the way of illegal immigration. The aim of George Soros and organisations supported by him is to flood Europe with migrants,” he added.
The lawsuit is the latest in a series of attacks against the conservative Fidesz-led government, which since the height of the European migrant crisis has worked to reduce illegal mass migration, protect the continent’s external borders, and assert its rights to put the needs of Hungarians first, above the demands of the European Union to accept third world migrants.
In September, the European Parliament passed a motion with a majority to begin Article 7 proceedings against Hungary, which could result in sanctions and voting rights being removed from the traditionalist, Christian country.
It is the first time that Article 7 was invoked by the Parliament, which was exposed in 2016 of having 226 Members of European Parliament regarded as “reliable allies” of Soros’s OSF.
President of the OSF Patrick Gaspard said in a statement: “The Hungarian government has fabricated a narrative of lies to blind people to the truth: that these laws were designed to intimidate independent civil society groups, in another step toward silencing all dissent.”
“There is only one thing this legislation will stop — and that’s democracy,” Mr Gaspard stated.
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán won a landslide victory in national elections in April, entering his third consecutive term in office with a supermajority in parliament.
Running on a platform of protecting the country’s borders and Christian identity, it was Hungarian democracy and the will of its people that ensured the passing of the Stop Soros legislation.