ANTIFASCHISMUS VERTEIDIGEN. Podiumsgespräch zur Kriminalisierung von Antifaschist*innen im Budapest-Komplex

In the organizer's words:

The Budapest complex

On February 8, hundreds of right-wing extremists from all over Europe meet in Budapest for the so-called "Day of Honor", many in camouflage suits, in SS uniforms, with Nazi insignia. They glorify Wehrmacht soldiers and Hungarian collaborators who tried to break through the siege of the Red Army in 1945 and died. To this day, they cultivate the heroic myth of the Nazi army that unleashed the criminal Second World War, which cost the lives of around 65 million people. The "Day of Honor" is one of the most important networking meetings of the extreme right in Europe.

The government under the right-wing conservative Fidesz party of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán tolerates the "commemorative march" while counter-protests are monitored and sealed off. In 2023, there were physical attacks on neo-Nazis around the "Day of Honor". According to the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office, some of them suffered serious injuries. Since then, Europe-wide searches, investigations and criminal proceedings have been ongoing against twelve anti-fascists in both Germany and Hungary, including for membership of a criminal organization. Some face up to 24 years in prison.

In June 2024, Maja T, a non-binary accused person, was extradited to Hungary in a night-and-fog operation by the federal police, contrary to an urgent decision by the Federal Constitutional Court. Although the Federal Constitutional Court ruled in February that the extradition to Hungary was inadmissible, Maja T. remains in solitary confinement in Hungary to this day, even though the highest German court, referring to Article 4 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which regulates the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment, found that the prison conditions in Hungary are not only intolerable for non-binary persons, but that the human rights situation in Hungarian prisons is generally highly deserving of criticism.

Due to the high prison sentences to be expected in Hungary, almost all of the accused had evaded arrest. At the end of January, seven of them voluntarily handed themselves in to the police. The Federal Public Prosecutor's Office then declared that, in its view, priority should be given to the German proceedings, as the Federal Constitutional Court had set the hurdles for further extraditions very high. However, this does not apply to Zaid A., against whom there is no German arrest warrant but only a European arrest warrant. Zaid A. has subsidiary protection under the Geneva Refugee Convention and cannot currently be deported to Syria, although he was recently granted parole after four months in extradition custody, he is still at acute risk of extradition to Hungary.

Panel discussion

with Anna Busl, defense lawyer of Zaid. A., the solidarity group family & friends Hamburg, Britta Rabe, Committee for Fundamental Rights and Democracy and Matthias Monroy, CILIP/nd

In the panel discussion we will talk about the criminalization of anti-fascism in the context of the Budapest proceedings, the current state of affairs, legal foundations and cross-border criminalization of anti-fascism and the question of how solidarity can be successful.