Before the referendum, a joke political party, Kétfarkú Kutya Párt (Two-tailed Dog Party) launched a massive counter-campaign, poking fun at the governmental propaganda posters, and some smaller left-wing parties also started initiatives against governmental discourse. Social media served as a prominent platform for satirical counter-actions: users created (with „poster-generator” applications) and posted hundreds of their own versions of the “Did you know that…?” posters. Some of these messages reflected on gender issues: “The Paris attacks were carried out by men. All the members of the Hungarian government are men. Are you afraid?” or “One woman per week is killed by her partner in Hungary” or “Roma women are placed in segregated maternity wards in Hungarian hospitals”.
However, references to violence against women as a major threat linked to migration became part of governmental discourse. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán mentioned at a public event that Western countries “with large numbers of illegal immigrants experience dramatic increases in crime… According to UN statistics … Sweden is second only to the southern African state of Lesotho in terms of figures for rape.” (The analyst of the Hungarian Spectrum blog emphasised that “comparative criminal statistics are full of pitfalls” due e.g. to the differences between legal definitions of rapes, law enforcement and crime reporting rates.) [...]
The referendum and the related governmental propaganda cost Hungarian taxpayers a lot: the campaign was estimated to have cost around 11.3bn HUF (approx. €36.8m) according to an MP of the Hungarian Socialist Party – while the Head of Cabinet of the Prime Minister, Antal Rogán, referred to a campaign budget of 3.9bn HUF (approx. €12.7m). The administrative costs amounted to a further 4.5–5bn HUF (approx. €14.6–16.3m). Let’s imagine the number of female and Roma citizens (not to mention female Roma citizens), whose lives could have been improved if the government had chosen to use this money more wisely – for relevant social purposes – instead of trying to persuade the electorate to reject just 1,294 refugees.
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