Hungary: ERRC deeply concerned over public safety as far-right extremists prepare to rally in Szolnok
11 September 2025
In a letter to law enforcement chiefs, the ERRC condemned plans by the far-right Mi Hazánk Mozgalom to defy a police-ban and to go ahead with a rally the ERRC described as deliberately provocative and designed to intimidate the Roma community in the city of Szolnok. Since that letter was sent, it appears that the police have backed down, withdrawn their ban, and approved the latest route proposal from the extremist group.
Mi Hazánk, along with two other neo-Nazi paramilitary outfits, the Betyársereg (the Outlaw Army) and the Bűnvadászok (the Crimehunters), have declared their intent to go ahead with a torchlit march through the city of Szolnok on 13 September. Publicity for the march and rally announced the event as a “Demonstration against Gypsy Crime, declaring that, “We will bring law to the ghettos!”
The ERRC maintains that the demonstration would constitute an unjustified interference with the right to private life of local Roma under Article 8 of the ECHR, as their personal and physical integrity would be explicitly targeted by far-right demonstrators. There is also a significant risk that other human rights will be violated, as such demonstrations often escalate into violence targeting Roma: “Under the European Convention for Human Rights, ECtHR case law requires authorities to take positive steps to provide adequate protection against intimidation of Roma in such situations.”
“The police backed down” (Mi Hazánk)
The Szolnok Police Headquarters initially refused to authorize the announced route, because the “participation of known extremist sympathizers of Mi Hazánk Mozgalom, and the purpose stated in the announcement are not suitable for maintaining the peaceful nature of the rally.” Instead, the police offered Szolnok’s Kossuth Lajos Square for the event in the form of a static (non-marching) demonstration. According to the Mi Hazánk website, the police justified the initial ban on the march stating that: “The multicultural nature and composition of the residential community on the march route potentially carries the possibility of disrupting public order and public safety.” The Mi Hazánk riposte was that “it is unacceptable for there to be no-go zones in Hungary!”
In a September 11 post on the Mi Hazánk website, vice-president, Előd Novák wrote, that “we will definitely hold the demonstration of strength in Szolnok on September 13 from 3 p.m., because if the LGBTQP march can be held, then why not a pro-order march? Since we did not back down, the police backed down and accepted our third notification.”
Mi Hazánk for beginners
Mi Hazánk was founded by László Toroczkai when it broke away from Jobbik in June 2018, in disgust at Jobbik’s attempts to rebrand itself as a conservative patriotic party, by outwardly shedding the racism, fascism and homophobia that made it such a hit among 20%-plus of Hungarian voters.
Mi Hazánk has remained true to such core values, and in the 2022 general election, Mi Hazánk won seven seats and emerged as the third largest party in the Hungarian Parliament. Its election program was a mish-mash of conspiracy theories, homophobia and explicit anti-Roma racism. This party’s brand of extremism outstrips that of their Jobbik forebears, and marks them out as the most extreme far-right gang to take seats in the Budapest parliament since World War II.
Perhaps the most disturbing of the party’s obsessions is anti-Roma racism, and from the outset, election posters and leaflets pledged to prevent Hungary becoming a ‘Gypsy country’, and stressed “the need to fight against all aspects of Gypsy delinquency” with voluntary self-defense associations.
In their national version of the great replacement, the Mi Hazánk program notes that while the birth rate of Hungarians plummets, “Gypsies are producing a population explosion typical of the Third World. The number of Gypsies doubles by generations, while the number of Hungarians is almost halved.” The party called for the establishment of a ‘Family Planning Authority’, to reduce birth rates among Roma “through sex education and assisted purchase of contraceptives” in those settlements that do not meet basic hygiene conditions and “still operate according to their own values, very different from those of northern civilization.”
In addition to its militantly racist anti-Roma stance, the party is virulently homophobic, and has made its mark in word and deed, with a steady stream of hate speech against ‘faggot propaganda’, marching in uniforms on community spaces, burning rainbow flags, and staging intimidatory disruptions of LGBTQ events. In September 2020, MP Dóra Dúró, posted a YouTube video of herself shredding a copy of a newly-published children’s book Fairy Tales for Everyone at a press conference. The Mí Hazánk leader and ‘proud mother-of-four’ declared that ‘Fairytale Land’ does not belong to ‘aberrals’; that her party “will not tolerate exposing children to homosexual propaganda, and that homosexual princes are not part of Hungarian culture.”
Given the deadly history of far-right extremists’ anti-Roma violence and intimidation in Hungary, and the leading commanding role of Mi Hazánk in perpetuating such racism, the very least the ERRC expects is that the Szolnok police will closely monitor the event and prevent any racially-motivated attacks or attempts to intimidate local Roma.
The text of the ERRC letter is available in English and Hungarian.
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