MOSCOW (Sputnik) – According to a survey carried out by the UK-based Populus research and strategy consultancy exclusively for Sputnik, 62 percent of respondents living in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Poland oppose taking refugees in, while only 26 percent support the idea.
"Our politicians are playing the card of xenophobia, and they do not explain who the refugees are, who the migrants are, why the refugees from Syria arrive… They rather play the card of xenophobia and that’s the basic mistake," Martin Rozumek said.
Over 710,000 migrants arrived in the European Union during the first nine months of 2015, according to the EU border agency Frontex.
Last week, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Hussein slammed the Czech Republic for systematic refugee rights violations and condemned Czech President Milos Zeman for giving xenophobic and Islamophobic speeches.
In September, the EU interior ministers approved a plan proposed by the European Commission to redistribute some 160,000 refugees throughout the bloc based on a quota system. The quotas have been strongly opposed by several EU states, including the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary.
