Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government launched a continentwide manhunt when a group of European antifascists attacked a neo-Nazi rally three years ago.
Orbán, though, showed no such appetite for cracking down on the annual fascist rally, which this February drew attendees sporting SS patches, swastikas, and the “Totenkopf” death’s head symbol — all under the watchful eye of Hungarian police.
The aggressive response to antifascist activists, compared to the kid-gloves treatment of neo-Nazi demonstrators, has roiled European politics for years.
On Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio joined the fray, inserting the U.S. into the debate by declaring the antifascist group that attacked the 2023 rally a terrorist organization.
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Though the designation is aimed at foreign groups, Rubio said that he was acting in accordance with President Donald Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, or NSPM-7, regarding purported “domestic” terrorists.
The terror designation will cut off the small Antifa Ost group, and three others designated by Rubio on Thursday, from raising funds in the U.S. It could also imperil American antifascist groups with civil and criminal allegations of “material support” for terrorism, a civil rights lawyer warned.
“The clever way to go about it for them is to designate some foreign organization, because a foreign organization can be designated and there is almost no due process,” said Shane Kadidal, a lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights. “Then, you go after the U.S. groups for supposedly coordinating their political messages with the messages of the foreign groups.”
Rubio’s announcement follows on the heels of one from Trump in September that he was designating antifa a “major terrorist organization,” which has no basis in law. The foreign terrorist organization designations, however, entail significant legal consequences.
Under a 2010 ruling from the Supreme Court, domestic groups can face “material support” charges for providing nonviolent support to designated foreign terrorist organizations.
Kadidal said the Trump administration could essentially try to use the foreign terrorist designations as a workaround to target domestic antifascists with “material support” charges. Key questions such as whether domestic activists had knowledge and intent to coordinate with foreign groups can be left for a jury to decide based on circumstantial evidence, he said.
“That is one of those things that makes this so dangerous,” he said. “The jury may just decide, ‘Yeah, whatever you have alleged about this coordination of messaging is true, because these are bad people in front of me.’”
“Juries do this thing all the time. They jump to conclusions.”
Thousands of neo-Nazis gathered in Budapest for the annual so-called Day of Honour march, an event that openly glorifies those who fought alongside the Nazis.Participants displayed Nazi insignia, uniforms, and slogans, with known extremists from across Europe joining the rally.… pic.twitter.com/ZUY1a9eS9J
— European Jewish Congress (@eurojewcong) February 10, 2025
Street Brawlers
The antifascists who targeted the neo-Nazi “Day of Honor” rally held in Budapest in February 2023 are accused of beating and bloodying several people, some of whom may have been victims of mistaken identity, according to Hungarian authorities.
Even leftists who disapprove of street violence, however, were outraged by what happened next. Orbán’s government relentlessly sought the extradition of alleged participants in the antifascist action and pressed for long prison terms.
In the years since, neo-Nazis have continued to gather in Budapest under the protection of Hungarian police, in sharp contrast to the country’s ban on pride parades. Antifa Ost’s alleged members, meanwhile, have faced trials in Germany and Hungary, where one faces up to 23 years in prison.
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In addition to Antifa Ost, Rubio designated three other groups as terrorists: the Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front of Italy; and in Greece, the groups Armed Proletarian Justice and Revolutionary Class Self-Defense.
The groups’ actions — ranging from the bombing of a Greek train office to the non-fatal shooting of a nuclear company’s executive — have drawn little notice in the U.S., but the State Department cast them in dramatic terms in a social media post.
“Anarchist militants have waged terror campaigns in the United States and Europe, conspiring to undermine the foundations of Western Civilization through their brutal attacks,” the department said.
Rubio promised more crackdowns to come.
“The United States will continue using all available tools to protect our national security and public safety,” he said in a statement, “and will deny funding and resources to terrorists, including targeting other Antifa groups across the globe.”
Trump’s Hungarian Pals
Despite lacking a basis in law, Trump’s domestic terror label for antifascists has already had real-world effects.
Last month, the International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund, a group that has supported antifascists in the U.S., announced that it was shutting down its fundraising channels as a “precaution” in response to Trump’s “edict.” The group has raised money for antifascists in the U.S. and abroad, including the counter-protesters in Budapest.
“We are presently exploring our options for re-establishing the Defence Fund’s infrastructure in a country not currently governed by fascists and we hope to have good news about that shortly,” the group said.
When it comes to the designations Rubio issued this week, meanwhile, the administration could face complications in wielding them directly against activists. Prosecutors would still have to convince judges and juries to secure criminal convictions against domestic activists.
The designations from Rubio, however, could also open the floodgates for private actors who could file civil lawsuits on even flimsier grounds.
Rubio designated the antifascist groups as both specially designated global terrorists and foreign terrorist organizations. The latter designation, which goes into effect November 20, opens domestic groups to civil liability for allegedly providing material support.
The same legal theory has been used by pro-Israel law firms to harass pro-Palestine student protesters. Even if the cases are eventually thrown out, they can smother activists in costly court proceedings for years, Kadidal said.
“What the government can do is already really, really broad and concerning,” he said. “What they can unleash private actors to do without any accountability is a whole ’nother bag of tricks.”
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