Four alleged far-left Antifa extremists, three of which were foreigners, were arrested in Budapest over the weekend after the brutal beating of a man on the street that was captured on video.
The attack took place in Budapest on Saturday and saw a group of around eight far-left extremists attack a man after he got off a bus as he was, it is said, on his way to work.
Footage of the attack showed the mob, who were wearing masks and were armed with weapons, including extendable batons, brutally beating the man, identified as Zoltán T., as he was on the ground and hitting him repeatedly in the head. The victim needed twenty-five stitches, Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet reports.
Hungarian police were later able to track down and arrested four of the alleged Antifa extremists, identifying that at least three of them were foreigners.
Zoltán T. spoke to Hungarian media about the attack saying the Antifa extremists followed him on a bus and attacked him outside a local post office but claimed not to remember much of what occurred after a blow to his neck.
The man was not the only alleged victim of the Antifa mob over the weekend, as Magyar Hemzet claims that a young German couple were also attacked after being followed, with the man suffering severe head trauma.
Miklós Szánthó, director general of the Centre for Fundamental Rights, a Hungarian think-tank, commented on the attacks saying it was “intolerable” and called for the full weight of the law to be brought down on the attackers.
“This kind of thing is intolerable, and based on the video footage of ‘Antifa’ activists attacking a man from behind and beating a man to half to death with an extendable baton, it is despicable and vile,” he said.
Brazen public brutal attacks by far-left extremists in Budapest are incredibly rare but have become common in parts of Germany and France in recent years, with activists and even elected politicians being targetted by Antifa militants.
Antifa militants posted an alleged confession to a 2019 attack on German member of parliament Frank Magnitz, a member of the populist Alternative for Germany (Afd), which was described by some as an assassination attempt due to the severity of the violence.
German cities such as Leipzig and Berlin are also known as hotspots for Antifa violence, with violence in Leipzig becoming so bad that the local police developed a specialised task force, Soko Linx, to deal with the ongoing criminality.