Solidarité Appel à une journée d’action internationale pour la libération des antifascistes du Budapest Complex

Every year at the beginning of February, the major neo-Nazi event “Day of Honour” attracts thousands of fascists from all over the world, but above all from Europe, to Budapest. Right-wing rock concerts, marches and right-wing memorial events take place here for a whole weekend. The fascist event weekend commemorates the attempted breakout by Wehrmacht and SS units in February 1945, shortly before the Red Army liberated Budapest. During the weekend, Nazis in military clothing, often in Wehrmacht or SS uniforms, can be seen everywhere in the city centre, mainly due to the hike into the Budapest city forest. Every year during these days, Budapest becomes a no-go area for migrants, left-wingers and queer people. In February 2023, however, fear changed sides. Neo-Nazis were targeted. The Hungarian press wrote of malicious attacks on a “musician”, German “passers-by”, “Polish tourists” and a “Hungarian citizen”, which the German press widely adopted. Behind the trivialising formulations are the member of a Hungarian Nazi band, who proudly poses online with his Ku Klux Klan and 88 tattoos, a regular Nazi concert-goer from Germany, supporters of the Polish Nazi party “Ruch Narodowy” (“National Movement”) and a leading member of the “Légió Hungária” (“Hungarian Legion”). The Légió Hungária is a co-organiser of the “Day of Honour”. Anti-fascists from Italy and Germany were arrested and accused of the attacks.

Since February last year, two of the anti-fascists – Ilaraia from Italy and Tobi from Germany – have been in custody. The trial against the two and an anti-fascist from Germany, who was also arrested in Budapest, began in January. 10 have also been wanted by warrant since then. Maja, arrested in Berlin in December 2023, is currently in pre-trial detention in Dresden. Maja faces imminent extradition. The anti-fascist Gabriele, who was also arrested as part of the Budapest repression, is under house arrest in Italy but is currently not being extradited. This is thanks to a broad movement campaigning for Ilaria and Gabriele in Italy. In Germany, on the other hand, there is no broad-based solidarity. We must now begin to increase the pressure to prevent the imprisoned and wanted anti-fascists from being extradited to Hungary and being tried there. These young people will sit in Budapest in front of judges who hate the left and politically side with Viktor Orbán’s government. The lack of independence of Hungarian judges has even been criticised by both Amnesty International and the European Court of Human Rights. Ilaria faces a prison sentence of up to 16 years. If Maja or other anti-fascists are extradited, they could face up to 24 years in prison and pre-trial detention, which can be extended almost indefinitely. Ilaria reported being locked up for 23 hours in a cell measuring just three and a half square metres, malnutrition and catastrophic hygiene conditions, mice, cockroaches and bedbugs in the cells as well as inadequate ventilation in summer and cold in winter.

Because we don’t want our comrades and friends to spend more than ten or twenty precious years of their lives in a Budapest prison, we must act. And we must do it now !

We can only do this as a movement and, above all, only if our protest becomes more international. There is currently a lack of a broad and networked solidarity movement that can build up the necessary pressure internationally, but above all across Europe, to prevent the extradition of the anti-fascists and fight for their release. Let us therefore take a first step !

Take action on 18 March and also in the time before.

Since 1923, 18th of March has been the “International Day of Aid to Political Prisoners” and is increasingly celebrated in German-speaking countries.

Just a few days earlier, on the 16th of March, thousands of anti-fascists also took to the streets in Milan. 16th of March, “the black night of Milan”, marks the day in 2003 when the anti-fascist Davide “Dax Cesare” was murdered by a fascist and is an important day of remembrance and struggle within the Italian antifascist movement. This year, the commemorative demonstration is taking to the streets to demand the release of the imprisoned anti-fascists.

Let’s put our actions and struggles in context with each other and make our demands clear as best as we can across national borders :

– Freedom for Ilaria, Maja, Tobi and Gabriele !
– No extradition of the accused anti-fascists to Hungary ! #NOEXTRADITION
– Immediate return of the detainees to their home countries !
– The chance of a fair trial for all antifascists concerned !

Get active :

– make graffiti, get creative !
– organise rallies at embassies and cultural institutes in Germany, Italy and Hungary !
– organise actions !
– Makes solidarity photos !

Your actions on social media :

Use the hashtags :
#noextradition
#freeallantifas
#freethebudapesttwo

Twitter :
https://twitter.com/basc161
https://twitter.com/WirsindalleLinx

Instagram :
https://www.instagram.com/freebudapesttwo/
https://www.instagram.com/solidarieta.antifa.budapest/
https://www.instagram.com/antifa.international/

left graffiti pages to collaborate/link :
https://www.instagram.com/radicalgraffiti/
https://www.instagram.com/writers.against.racism/

Please always link the Instagram pages or make the pages collaboration partners. Your post will then appear on the tagged Instagram pages. This generates more publicity.

Local, left-wing news websites :
Publish your calls to action and reports on your local Indymedia pages or other left-wing websites.

Information and material :
https://budapest-solidarity.net/
https://www.basc.news/
(on these websites you will find texts that you can also be used and translated as speeches, for example).

Contact :
Please send your photos and reports here by e-mail :
Mail : budapest-solidarity@riseup.net