You're reading: Reuters: Hungary approves ‘STOP Soros’ law, defying EU, rights groups

Reuters: Hungary approves ‘STOP Soros’ law, defying EU, rights groups

Published June 20, 2018 at 5:24 pm

Members of leading Hungarian nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) pose in front of a giant heart-shaped balloon during a demonstration calling MP's not to support the so-called "Stop Soros" package of bills on June 4, 2018 in front of the parliament building in Budapest. Leading Hungarian nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) denounced legislation proposed by Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government that would criminalise the act of helping asylum-seekers and could see NGO activists and lawyers handed jail terms.

Photo by AFP

Hungary’s parliament on June 20 approved a package of bills that criminalizes some help given to illegal immigrants, defying the European Union and human rights groups and narrowing the scope for action by non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been a vocal critic of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door migrant policy and has led eastern European opposition to EU quotas that aimed to distribute asylum seekers around the bloc.