BUDAPEST — Award-winning Hungarian-Jewish writer Akos Kertesz has confirmed that he has applied for political asylum in Canada.

Harassment and threats following the author’s controversial statements about Hungary’s role in the Holocaust have led him to seek asylum in Canada, the Hungarian News Agency reported.

Kertesz’s said in a statement released to the media that “a political campaign was mounted against him, not only by the Budapest city hall but also from within the government and parliament.”

The origin of the controversy was an article Kertesz wrote in the American Hungarian-language newspaper Amerikai Nepszava, in which he said that Hungarians alone can now be blamed for the Holocaust because they, unlike the Germans, have failed to admit to and to repent for their crimes. He also referred to Hungarians as “genetically subservient” due to the fact that they “do not feel the slightest remorse for the gravest of historical crimes, they shift their responsibility to others and always put the blame on others.”

Kertesz later cut the phrase “genetically subservient” from the article but it did not prevent the Budapest City Council from stripping the writer of his honorary citizenship. The writer’s statement also said the current right-wing government has “launched a witch hunt and fuelled the extremists” and that the 80-year-old Kertesz has been “subject to constant harassment and threats. He was attacked in the street and he thought his life was in jeopardy.”