Hungary Blocks Refuge For Syrians Seeking Asylum In Europe

Trump's wall will be much fancier

Hungary's right-wing Fidesz Party won enough parliamentary seats in 2010 (263, more than two-thirds) to be able to ride roughshod over the country's post-Communist democracy. They were even able to change the constitution, although they have since lost two by-eletions and no longer have that power. The really far right party-- a neo-Nazi outfit called Jobbik-- came in third and won 47 seats. 

Right after the election Oszkár Molnár, Fidesz member of parliament, told the media that "I love Hungary, I love Hungarians, and I prefer Hungarian interests to global financial capital, or Jewish capital, if you like, which wants to devour the whole world, but especially Hungary," and, later, that gypsy women deliberately try to induce birth defects for financial gain. "I have checked this," he said, "and it’s true; they hit their bellies with a rubber hammer so that they’ll give birth to handicapped kids." The party is anti-Semitic, homophobic and nationalistic. You can imagine what their friends in the fascist Jobbik-- who are far more anti-Semitic, homophobic and nationalistic-- have to say. Things like "we must prepare for armed battle against the Jews."

No doubt you read the grisly news about the Hungarian grocery truck filled with 71 corpses that was found over the border in Austria. The dead are Syrian refugees fleeing ISIS and the country's civil war.

Migrants fearful of death at sea in overcrowded and flimsy boats have increasingly turned to using a land route to Europe through the Western Balkans. They start in Greece, which they can reach via a short boat trip from Turkey, then move on through Macedonia, Serbia and into Hungary, where thousands have been crossing the border every day, crawling over or under a razor-wire fence meant to keep them out.

Most go from there to other countries in the European Union, sometimes paying smugglers to drive them, but the discovery of the bodies in the truck showed there is no truly safe path.

Keeping in mind the nature of the right-wing nationalist government in Budapest, it should come as no surprise that the Hungarians aren't exactly facilitating the movement of Syrains refugees through their country. No one wants to stay in the close-minded little fascistic state, but the Hungarians don't want them even traveling through. The Hungarians have built a fence along their southern border-- although not the big beautiful one Trump envisions on our own border. Tens of thousands of refugee families are fleeing for their lives, and the Hungarians are extremely hostile to them and have been accused of inhumane treatment.

Surveying a section of the razor-wire barrier that Hungary has built along its 110-mile border with Serbia, Mr Baloch [a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] said: “This is Fortress Europe coming into being. “It’s a reminder of the Iron Curtain. Can Europe really hide behind walls and fences when these desperate people need help? Seeking asylum is not a crime.”

Meanwhile the chief of staff for Viktor Orban, Hungary's rightist prime minister, told a local newspaper, "If we do not take meaningful steps"-- presumably steps beyond the teargas Hungarian soldiers are using on refugees-- "we will become a lifeboat that sinks beneath the weight of those clinging onto it." And this despite the fact that none of the refugees want to stay in Hungary any longer than it takes to pass through to Austria, Germany and beyond. Orban gins up resentment against the refugees with wild claims that there are risks of terrorism, crime and unemployment. 

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says he is "horrified and heartbroken" and that a "large majority" of people undertaking such dangerous journeys are refugees who have the right to protection and asylum. He called on all governments to act with compassion and humanity.