A Hungarian state honor given to a prominent journalist close to Prime Minister Viktor Orban has prompted 40 recipients of the same award to return theirs in protest, according to Agence France Presse. Zsolt Bayer's award was given for his work in setting up a body representing victims of Communism and not his column-writing. Orban's office said that there were no plans to withdraw the honor.
Andras Heisler, the head of Hungary's largest Jewish organization, Maszihisz, said he was also handing back his award given him in 2011 as he did not want to belong to the same "group of people" as Bayer. Heisler wrote in a Facebook message that Bayer "is a racist, an anti-Semite, who pollutes Hungary with his incandescent Gypsy-hatred and nation-destroying ideas."