Thousands march in Budapest against Hungary’s plan to build Chinese university campus
- Plans to build a satellite campus of Fudan University in the Hungarian capital draw an estimated 10,000 to a protest, organisers say
- Campus to be built instead of an area of affordable housing for students and has caused outcry among opposition figures in the country
Organisers estimated 10,000 people marched, despite government restrictions on demonstrations, indicating how controversial the project has become in the Hungarian capital.
It will be built in place of a planned “student city”, designed to provide affordable housing to students in Budapest. With an election next year, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s political opponents have seized on the project’s perceived excess, claiming it highlights the corruption of Orban’s right-wing Fidesz party, which has been in power for four terms.
Addressing the rally, Gergely Karacsony, Budapest’s liberal mayor who is heavily favoured to win September’s primary to run against Orban on a unified opposition ticket, said: “We are raising our voice against the selling out of Hungary’s national sovereignty, not against the Chinese state, not against the Chinese people, especially not those with whom we live peacefully in this country together. We are standing up for our own country.”