Budapest, July 16 (MTI) – Two fifths of Hungarians would bar immigrants from entering country if it were up to them, a recent survey has found.
A Tarki survey published on Wednesday shows that 39 percent of all respondents were against immigrants coming to Hungary.
Just 10 percent responding to the April survey said all immigrants should be granted asylum. Fifty-one percent of the sample said that asylum requests should be considered on an individual basis.
In terms of the nationality of asylum seekers, 60 percent of the respondents preferring individual consideration would reject granting haven to Piresians, a non-existent ethnic group made up by the survey firm (down from 68 percent in 2007). Sixty-seven percent found Chinese immigrants unwanted (81 percent in 2007), and 78 percent would reject Arabs (87 percent in 2007). Seventy percent said immigrants of Romanian ethnicity were unwelcome (77 percent in 2007 and 63 percent in 2010).
Tarki has been measuring xenophobia since 1992, when it was found that the proportion of outright xenophobes was around 15 percent. In the following years the figure quickly increased, reaching 40 percent in 1995. Between 2002 and 2011 the index varied between 24 and 33 percent, while it started to rise again in 2012.