Teh One Who Knocks
09-15-2015, 10:40 AM
FOX News and The Associated Press
http://i.imgur.com/tZ0FFLR.jpg
Hungary declared a state of emergency in two southern counties Tuesday, giving special powers to police and other authorities while paving the way for the country's army to be deployed to assist police with border patrol and refugee-related duties.
Late Monday, Hungary installed razor wife in an effort to block the main crossing point into the country from Serbia that had been used by thousands of refugees from the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. The state of emergency also allows the government to force courts to prioritize cases involving people caught entering Hungary illegally and give police the power to search homes without a warrant if they suspect refugees may be hiding there.
Sky News reported that police used a rail cargo container covered with seven coils of razor wire to seal the railway crossing at the town of Roszke. Dozens of officers wearing helmets, backed by soldiers and police on horseback, stood on the railway track. Hungary also ordered low-altitude airspace on the border reserved for police surveillance helicopters,
Some refugees were told to walk to an approved border crossing a mile away, while others were taken by bus to a temporary holding center and some were put on trains bound for Austria in an apparent attempt to clear the backlog.
Despite the new measures, hundreds of refugees spent Monday night in tents or out in the open on the Serbian side of the border. The Associated Press reported that the refugees continued arriving despite warnings from Serbian border guards that the crossing would no longer be open.
Early Tuesday, Hungarian police say two crossings on the border with Serbia had been closed to all traffic. Col. Laszlo Balazs said Tuesday that the measure affects the smaller of two border crossings near the village of Roszke and one checkpoint at the village of Asotthalom. Balazs said he had "no information" about where migrants seeking to apply for asylum in Hungary would be let in.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban warned that people walking into his country from non-EU member Serbia faced a new regime of swift rejection and deportation, given that Serbia today is a safe place to live. Serbian officials have previously said they will not accept refugees back from Hungary.
"We are not going to seal the border hermetically," Orban told Hungarian television in an interview that emphasized his view that the vast bulk of travelers should be treated as illegal immigrants seeking a European standard of living, not war refugees fleeing life-threatening dangers.
"If someone claims to be a refugee, he will be asked if he filed an asylum request in Serbia. And if he did not file it, since Serbia is a safe country, it will be rejected," Orban said, adding that if people simply wanted safety, they could have stopped in Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary or Austria, not overwhelmingly sought to reach Germany.
"These people are not coming for their security. They are not running for their lives," Orban said, describing their true goal as "a German life."
Figures showed that a record 7,437 people entered Hungary from Serbia on Monday, beating the previous day's highest of 5,809.
In Brussels, ministers from the 28-nation European Union agreed to share responsibility for 40,000 people seeking refuge in overwhelmed Italy and Greece and spoke hopefully of reaching eventual agreement — possibly next month, or possibly by the end of the year — on which nations would take 120,000 more.
But their slow deliberations appeared disconnected from the rapidly shifting situation on the most besieged borders of Europe, where Austria, Slovakia and even the Netherlands joined Germany in reintroducing border controls for the first time in a generation in a bid to record the arrivals of thousands daily from the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
The checks, involving police on trains and on border roads, snarled traffic and slowed the speed and volume of refugees reaching Germany, which had received more than 60,000 newcomers since throwing opens its borders Sept. 5 to people trying to reach the E.U. heavyweight via Hungary, the Balkans and Greece. Since Sunday those borders have grown tighter again, reflecting German unease at the sheer volume and lack of commitment from E.U. partners to share the load.
"If we don't find a solution, then this chaos will be the result," said Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn of Luxembourg, which holds the E.U. presidency. Germany's decision to deploy police on borders and trains could trigger "a domino effect and then we can forget Schengen," he said, referring to the 1985 agreement that gradually removed passport checks on most European borders.
Large-scale deportations appear unlikely even in Hungary, where within minutes of the nationally televised closure of that border crossing with the boxcar, hundreds already had walked a few miles to one of the seven vehicular crossings with Serbia that will remain open.
There, Hungary put on an organized and pragmatic face, admitting foreigners early Tuesday in groups of 10 and 20 and escorting them to a fleet of parked buses. Soon, they were dropped at a train station. To some travelers' surprise, their destination was not a Hungarian asylum center, but a free trip to the Austrian border.
Confusion reigned among travelers, few of whom could comprehend the police's instructions in Hungarian or rudimentary English or German.
Asked where he thought the train was going, Wale Nuru Deem from Nigeria said: "Sweden." He then asked a reporter how long the journey would take.
http://i.imgur.com/tZ0FFLR.jpg
Hungary declared a state of emergency in two southern counties Tuesday, giving special powers to police and other authorities while paving the way for the country's army to be deployed to assist police with border patrol and refugee-related duties.
Late Monday, Hungary installed razor wife in an effort to block the main crossing point into the country from Serbia that had been used by thousands of refugees from the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. The state of emergency also allows the government to force courts to prioritize cases involving people caught entering Hungary illegally and give police the power to search homes without a warrant if they suspect refugees may be hiding there.
Sky News reported that police used a rail cargo container covered with seven coils of razor wire to seal the railway crossing at the town of Roszke. Dozens of officers wearing helmets, backed by soldiers and police on horseback, stood on the railway track. Hungary also ordered low-altitude airspace on the border reserved for police surveillance helicopters,
Some refugees were told to walk to an approved border crossing a mile away, while others were taken by bus to a temporary holding center and some were put on trains bound for Austria in an apparent attempt to clear the backlog.
Despite the new measures, hundreds of refugees spent Monday night in tents or out in the open on the Serbian side of the border. The Associated Press reported that the refugees continued arriving despite warnings from Serbian border guards that the crossing would no longer be open.
Early Tuesday, Hungarian police say two crossings on the border with Serbia had been closed to all traffic. Col. Laszlo Balazs said Tuesday that the measure affects the smaller of two border crossings near the village of Roszke and one checkpoint at the village of Asotthalom. Balazs said he had "no information" about where migrants seeking to apply for asylum in Hungary would be let in.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban warned that people walking into his country from non-EU member Serbia faced a new regime of swift rejection and deportation, given that Serbia today is a safe place to live. Serbian officials have previously said they will not accept refugees back from Hungary.
"We are not going to seal the border hermetically," Orban told Hungarian television in an interview that emphasized his view that the vast bulk of travelers should be treated as illegal immigrants seeking a European standard of living, not war refugees fleeing life-threatening dangers.
"If someone claims to be a refugee, he will be asked if he filed an asylum request in Serbia. And if he did not file it, since Serbia is a safe country, it will be rejected," Orban said, adding that if people simply wanted safety, they could have stopped in Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary or Austria, not overwhelmingly sought to reach Germany.
"These people are not coming for their security. They are not running for their lives," Orban said, describing their true goal as "a German life."
Figures showed that a record 7,437 people entered Hungary from Serbia on Monday, beating the previous day's highest of 5,809.
In Brussels, ministers from the 28-nation European Union agreed to share responsibility for 40,000 people seeking refuge in overwhelmed Italy and Greece and spoke hopefully of reaching eventual agreement — possibly next month, or possibly by the end of the year — on which nations would take 120,000 more.
But their slow deliberations appeared disconnected from the rapidly shifting situation on the most besieged borders of Europe, where Austria, Slovakia and even the Netherlands joined Germany in reintroducing border controls for the first time in a generation in a bid to record the arrivals of thousands daily from the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
The checks, involving police on trains and on border roads, snarled traffic and slowed the speed and volume of refugees reaching Germany, which had received more than 60,000 newcomers since throwing opens its borders Sept. 5 to people trying to reach the E.U. heavyweight via Hungary, the Balkans and Greece. Since Sunday those borders have grown tighter again, reflecting German unease at the sheer volume and lack of commitment from E.U. partners to share the load.
"If we don't find a solution, then this chaos will be the result," said Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn of Luxembourg, which holds the E.U. presidency. Germany's decision to deploy police on borders and trains could trigger "a domino effect and then we can forget Schengen," he said, referring to the 1985 agreement that gradually removed passport checks on most European borders.
Large-scale deportations appear unlikely even in Hungary, where within minutes of the nationally televised closure of that border crossing with the boxcar, hundreds already had walked a few miles to one of the seven vehicular crossings with Serbia that will remain open.
There, Hungary put on an organized and pragmatic face, admitting foreigners early Tuesday in groups of 10 and 20 and escorting them to a fleet of parked buses. Soon, they were dropped at a train station. To some travelers' surprise, their destination was not a Hungarian asylum center, but a free trip to the Austrian border.
Confusion reigned among travelers, few of whom could comprehend the police's instructions in Hungarian or rudimentary English or German.
Asked where he thought the train was going, Wale Nuru Deem from Nigeria said: "Sweden." He then asked a reporter how long the journey would take.