294/2017 • 16, DECEMBER 2017 WEEKEND ISSUE
DAILY NEWS IN ENGLISH
Hate speech in the Hungarian election campaign Ahead of the vote in April, the rhetoric has reached a new low
The Hungarian election campaign has turned toxic after a Fidesz party politician posted a photo of a slaughtered pig with George Sorosʼ name on it.
ʼNazi Grandmaʼ Holocaust denier may finally face jail
Iraqi army launches operation to clear IS remnants
A court in western Germany is considering the appeal of octogenarian Ursula Haverbeck, who has multiple convictions for Holocaust denial. Haverbeck has been handed several jail terms, but has so far avoided prison. A German court was due to make a decision on Thursday in the appeal of an 88-year-old woman convicted for incitement to racial hatred on multiple occasions. Ursula Haverbeck challenged two verdicts handed down by a court in the western town of Detmold, after she denied that the genocide of Jews between 1941 and 1945 had taken place.
The capture of Rawa last week signaled the fall of the final IS stronghold in Iraq, putting a decisive end to the terror groupʼs "caliphate" aspirations. Liberation forces are now pushing into the desert. Iraq launched an army operation to flush militants out of its border region with Syria, the military said on Thursday, as it pushes to entirely expel "Islamic State" (IS) from its lands. The Iraqi army, federal police and the Shiite paramilitary group Hashed al-Shaabi have begun "clearing" a large strip of desert in the west of the country, General Abdelamir Yarallah said in a statement.
Janos Pocs, a parliamentarian from Prime Minister Viktor Orbanʼs Fidesz party, thought it was funny — but the joke was outrageous. He posted a photo of a slaughter on his Facebook page, showing a group of people with a dead pig at their feet. Someone had carved the words "O volt a soros!!!" in its skin. The term is a word play and could either mean, "He was next in line," or "He was Soros." Pocsʼ comment under the photo simply read: "One pig less," and was followed by a smiley emoji. The photo and Pocsʼ comment caused a public uproar in Hungary. More than 1,000 Facebook users posted messages condemning the politician. Pocs exclaimed that he had no idea what the problem was, the photo, he said, had nothing to do with George Soros, the US billionaire against whom Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been leading a long and relentless public attack campaign. The feigned innocence of the denial only served to further enrage a portion of the Hungarian population, including many conservatives. Meanwhile, some 120 renowned Hungarian intellectuals, among them writer Gyorgy Konrad, philosophers Agnes Heller and Gaspar Miklos Tamas, and filmmaker Ildiko Enyedi have called for Pocsʼ resignation. Sorosʼ Open Society Foundation has also protested vehemently: "This is a shocking attack on George Soros. The photo Mr. Pocs decided to publish is in a long and dark tradition of anti-Semitic
imagery dating back to the Middle Ages. It is another example of officially accepted anti-Semitism in Viktor Orbanʼs Hungary." Fideszʼs parliamentary group leader Gergely Gulyas told reporters at a press conference that such criticism was simply part of "Sorosʼ anti-Hungary campaign." When asked about the affair by reporters, Viktor Orban dryly replied that, "issues pertaining to slaughtering pigs" are not in the governmentʼs purview. Janos Pocs did not respond to numerous DW requests for comment. The affair illustrates just how toxic Hungaryʼs political climate has become under Orban. The hateful rhetoric used by the majority of the governmentʼs representatives borders on right-wing extremist propaganda and has become a part of everyday life for Hungarians. In light of the fact that elections will be held in April of next year, one can only assume that things will get even worse over the coming months. This year, the government launched two campaigns against Soros within the framework of socalled "national consultations." The first campaign used old anti-Semitic tropes to portray Soros as a puppet master as well as the head of an anti-Hungarian conspiracy, under the motto: "We wonʼt let Soros have the last laugh!" In the second campaign, citizens were asked to voice their criticisms of a non-existent Soros plan, in which the billionaire supposedly planned to flood Europe with millions of refugees.
Police enter decommissioned Australian detention camp
FB to show users if they ʼlikedʼ alleged Russian propaganda
apua New Guinea police have moved in on the shuttered Australian-run Manus detention camp in an attempt to force hundreds of asylum seekers occupying it to leave. The camp long symbolized Canberraʼs strict asylum laws Authorities in Papua New Guinea are removing more than 300 asylum seekers from a squalid immigration camp on Manus island to another location Australia has paid PNG and the nearby island of Nauru to hold refugees as part of its controversial immigration policy.
The social media giant Facebook is working on a tool to let users know if they ʼlikedʼ any of the accounts allegedly pushing Russian propaganda. The company believes some 146 million Americans were exposed to such posts. The US-based company announced it would create a web page for its users to visit in order to find out if they liked or followed accounts with an alleged pro-Kremlin agenda. The tool would apply to accounts on both Facebook and Instagram, which has been owned by Facebook since 2012.