When Donald Trump suggested that parts of Britain had become Muslim-dominated “no-go areas” back in December, the response from London’s metropolitan police force was unambiguous. Trump “could not be more wrong,” it said in a statement.
At the time, some far-right politicians were also suggesting that parts of Europe were too dangerous for white people to enter. This week, Hungary’s right-wing government also joined in by saying that there were 900 “no-go areas” across the continent. The list is featured on a new website that is supposed to send a clear message: “Refugees are not welcome here.”
Last September, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Muslims threatened Europe’s Christian identity. In an editorial for the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper, he wrote: “Everything that is now taking place before our eyes threatens to have explosive consequences for the whole of Europe.”
“Illegal migrants cross the borders unchecked, so we do not know who they are and what their intentions are. We do not know how many of them are disguised as terrorists,” the website’s authors write, according to a translation by Agence France-Presse.
Many of the other alleged “no-go areas” are districts “with a high number of immigrants” in major cities such as Stockholm, Paris or London – with the vast majority of them located in France. The Hungarian government went on to specify that these districts have common problems – authorities, for instance, allegedly find it hard to work there, and country-specific traditions are supposedly rarely respected.
A report by the International Humanist and Ethical Union from 2013 concluded that atheists faced “severe discrimination” in the country. Church-owned schools have proliferated in recent years, thanks to new laws, and Orban has repeatedly emphasized where he stands.
“We shouldn’t forget that the people who are coming here grew up in a different religion and represent a completely different culture,” he wrote in an editorial last September.
The list is supposed to show where Europe is losing the fight for its Christian values.
