 |
| George Soros |
Thousands of Hungarian and foreign students, professors and civilians rallied in Budapest on Sunday demanding the government withdraw legislation that could force a university founded by financier George Soros out of the country.
The demonstrators, who walked from Budapest’s Corvinus University to the Central European University (CEU) founded by Soros in 1991 and then to parliament, said the bill was an attack on freedom of education.
Parliament is due to discuss the bill this coming week.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban, an outspoken critic of liberal civil organisations funded by Soros, said on Friday that the CEU had violated regulations in awarding its diplomas, an allegation that the college had firmly rejected as false. The CEU said it operated lawfully and was accredited to award Hungarian and U.S. degrees.
A year before 2018 elections, Orban has raised the stakes in his fight against civil organizations funded by U.S. financier and philanthropist Soros.
A Hungarian himself by birth, Soros has admitted his role in establishing a foundation in Ukraine that ultimately led to the overthrow of the country’s elected leader and has acknowledged having reshaped the political landscape in Croatia, Slovakia, Georgia and Yugoslavia through civil society action organised by his Open Society foundations all over the world. He sees Orban as a nemesis to his own ‘borderless’ agenda, which proposes Europe take in one million refugees every year, and get used to it being “the new normal”.
Soros has said Orban treats “the protection of national borders as the objective and the refugees as an obstacle” whereas “our plan treats the protection of refugees as the objective and national borders as the obstacle”.
Earlier this week, the Hungarian government submitted a bill to parliament to regulate foreign universities setting several new requirements, which could force the CEU out of the country.
Under the bill, foreign universities must have a campus in Budapest and in their home country. CEU, which only operates in the capital, is the only international college with no arm elsewhere. CEU has said the bill threatened academic freedom.
Hungarian scholars and teaching organizations, as well as more than 500 leading international academics, including 17 Nobel Laureates have come out in support of CEU, saying it was one of the preeminent centres of thought in the country.
The U.S. State Department said in a statement on Friday that CEU was a “premier academic institution” that promoted academic excellence and critical thinking, and urged the government “to avoid taking any legislative action that would compromise CEU’s operations or independence.”
