You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Hungary Approves Law Criminalizing Those Who Help Migrants

HeadlineJun 21, 2018

In Hungary, lawmakers have approved a harsh anti-immigrant bill that will crack down on anyone offering aid to migrants seeking asylum. Under the legislation, offering food, water or legal advice to migrants would be outlawed. Even printing leaflets with information for asylum seekers would become a criminal offense. This is Hungarian human rights lawyer Márta Pardavi.

Márta Pardavi: “Today is World Refugee Day, and the Hungarian government, instead of providing protection, has decided to actually not provide protection, deny protection and actually side with the persecutors. It starts to persecute even individuals, human rights defenders and others who assist asylum seekers. I think this is a new low point for Hungary today, where even lawyers could face criminal prosecution.”

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top