in his native country. Austria In 2000, he commented on the rise of the far-right in Austria. He subsequently gave up his Austrian citizenship and took British citizenship in 2001. Hungary On 1 January 2011, Schiff published a letter in The Washington Post questioning whether "Hungary is ready and worthy to take on" the rotating presidency of the council of the European Union, as it did that day, because of "racism, discrimination against the Roma, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, chauvinism and reactionary nationalism," and "the latest media laws" (referring to new media laws passed at the end of December 2010 by the government of Viktor Orbán). On 16 January 2011, Schiff told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that he had become "persona non grata" in Hungary and would probably never perform there again "or even visit." On 17 January he joined Hungarian conductor Ádám Fischer and six other Hungarian intellectuals and artists in publishing an open letter "To the artists of Europe and the World" protesting against "racism against Roma, with homophobia and with antisemitism" and saying that "the freedom of the media, of the arts and artists, and of those who could most effectively act against such tendencies is more and more curtailed." The letter appeared in German and in English, with a note of support from Daniel Barenboim appended. As a result of his statements, he came under attack from Hungarian nationalists. On 14 January 2012, in an interview with the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, Schiff expressed his deep worries about right-wing radical gangs terrorising Roma, open antisemitism, and the very conservative chauvinism and nationalism of the ruling Fidesz party in Hungary lately. Since, as he said, “antisemitic baiting has become socially acceptable in Hungary”, and he had been decried as Saujude on the Internet, he had cancelled all his concerts in Hungary, he said. In December 2012, he said to the website of Yle Uutiset (Finnish television) that he would remain in self-imposed exile from Hungary. In December 2013, Schiff told an interviewer from the BBC that he had received anonymous threats through the internet, stating that "If I return to Hungary, they will cut off both of my hands. I don't want to risk physical and mental assault." In addition, wrote the interviewer, "Even without that threat, Schiff says he would find it difficult to play in Hungary. Art and politics cannot be disentangled. The audience matters to performers.