Hungarian leader denounces anti-Muslim rhetoric in Bosnia | Islamophobia News

A spokesman for Orban said it would be a “challenge” to integrate a country with two million Muslims into the EU.

Bosnian authorities and religious leaders have denounced the suggestions made by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his spokesman that Bosnia and Herzegovina will be challenged to integrate into the European Union because of its large Muslim population.

Orban’s spokesman Zoltan Kovacs tweeted that “the challenge for Bosnia is how to integrate a country with 2 million Muslims.”

Speaking in Budapest on Tuesday, the right-wing populist Orban said Hungary supported Bosnia’s EU bid, adding that as a member of the EU, Hungary had to mobilize a lot of energy to overcome “the growing fatigue of the European Union”. ”.

“I am doing my best to convince major European leaders that the Balkans may be further away from them than Hungary, but how we manage the security of a state inhabited by 2 million Muslims is a key issue for their security.”

The reaction in Bosnia on Wednesday was sharp, with some Bosnian parties calling for a ban on Orban’s planned official visit to Sarajevo, and the head of the Islamic community, Grand Hussein Kavazovic Mufti, called his statement “xenophobic and racist”.

“If such ideologies become the basis on which European policies are based, then the European Union will take us back to a time when similar ideologies such as fascism, Nazism, violence and genocide led to the Holocaust and the Holocaust. other heinous crimes, ”he said in a statement.

Bosnian President Sefik Dzaferovic described Orban’s statement as “embarrassing and rude”.

“It is not a challenge for the EU to integrate 2 million (Bosnian) Muslims, because we are an indigenous European who has always lived here and we are Europeans,” he said.

He is from Bosnia, which is made up of Bosnians, Serbs and Croats the most serious political crisis Since the end of the civil war in the 1990s.

With the secret support of Russia and Serbia, Bosnian Serbs are threatening to form their own army, judiciary and tax authority. reviving fears Another bloody rupture in the Balkan country.

Speaking on Tuesday, Orban also said that Hungary would not accept EU sanctions against Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodi when he was threatened by Germany and other member states for his separatist stance.

“Sarajevo has lost its temper, attacking everyone: Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, now Hungary. Not to mention Russia, ”Dodik said on Wednesday, referring to the aid he allegedly received from those countries.

Stain is known for its anti-migration policy, saying that Muslim migrants are the greatest threat to Christian values ​​in Europe. Serbia has also called for a swift access to the EU, despite the increasingly harsh policies of its ally, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.

More than 100,000 people were killed and millions left homeless in Bosnia in the 1992-95 war, when Bosnian Serbs tried to create ethnically clean territories to unite with neighboring Serbia.