Hungary: Over one fourth of citizen are openly intolerant towards foreigners

Over one fourth of Hungarians are openly intolerant towards foreigners. This is the result of a research conducted by the research centre Tárki in February 2007 trying to measure the intolerance rate in society.

29 percent of the people questioned were of the opinion that, irrespective of the reasons behind, no refugee should be granted access to Hungary. Only 10 percent of answers were positive (and would grant access to Hungary to anybody seeking refuge). The majority of answers (61 percent) can be found between the two and would give preference to some ethnicities and deny others (in the research conducted different ethnicities: Arabic, Chinese, Romanian, Russian were named). Apart from ethnic Hungarians in neighbouring countries most ethnicites received high intolerance marks (between 77-87 percent).

This trend was strengthened by the negative sentiment toward Pireziens (68 percent answered that they would not grant access to Pireziens as refugees to Hungary). This figure is not the highest but is the most interesting as the ethnicity in question does not exist in reality and is only made up by the research centre. Consequently the anti-Pirezien sentiment cannot have a real basis.

The results of the research show in general a stagnatic picture in the field of intolerance with similar results in previous research data.

www.tarki.hu