Budapest: The mayor of a Hungarian village has quit after plans to lodge two refugee families in a guesthouse for a holiday weekend provoked an angry and frightened response from locals.
"I do not want to contribute to a heightening of tensions," Janos Fulop, mayor of 2,000-strong Ocseny, 130 kilometres (80 miles) south of Budapest, said late Wednesday as he announced his resignation.
Hungary's government is openly hostile to immigration, particularly by Muslims, with Prime Minister Viktor Orban saying it poses a danger to Hungarian culture and is a "Trojan horse for terrorism".
Refugee group Migration Aid had struck an agreement with a guesthouse in Ocseny to put up the two families, some of the handful granted refugee status by the right-wing government, for a few days.
But locals were outraged, with the owner of the guesthouse having his car tyres slashed and receiving death threats, according to Andras Siewert, Migration Aid director.
At a raucous recent village meeting attended by Siewert, villagers said that they were scared for the safety of their families and that the new arrivals would want to settle, followed by others.
"I came back from Germany because there are so many Muslims I was scared to go out... The school is opposite the guesthouse, how will we protect our daughters?" Siewert cited one participant as saying.
"I can understand people's fears because the aim of the government propaganda is to instill fear," Siewert told AFP.
