Orbán’s plans to stop refugees revealed

Refugees in Hungary. [Index.hu]

EXCLUSIVE/ A Hungarian journalist has revealed government plans to create an airtight system designed to prevent asylum seekers from entering the country. The measures will be introduced on Tuesday (15 September). 

Writing for Index, Kata Janecskó, disclosed shocking details of the Hungarian plan. Refugee Crisis in Hungary offers a crowdsourced translation.

According to the article, Prime Minister Victor Orbán will do do two things during this week, and next, when the construction of the border fence at the Hungarian-Serbian border be completed.

First, Orbán will declare state of emergency, no matter how outrageous this may look in a EU country in times of peace.

Second, starting on 15 September, modifications to the Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Law will allow the following things to happen to a migrant:

Refugees can try to enter Hungary at an official border crossing, where the authorities will stop them, realize that they do not have a Schengen visa, and send them back to Serbia.

If the immigrants ask for asylum at the border crossing point, they will also be sent back to Serbia on the pretext that they should have claimed asylum there. The Hungarian authorities are happy that the Commission declared Serbia a safe country, and assume that Belgrade is obliged to take in refugees, because otherwise it may lose its EU candidate status.

In the event that refugees enter Hungary illegally, their act will be criminalized. Climbing the border fence, damaging it, even obstructing work at the, fence will trigger criminal charges.

Consequently, refugees will be put under “home arrest” in a detention camp because they do not have a Hungarian address, will be brought to a state-of-emergency court that will deliver a verdict in 8 days (in case they are caught in situ on the border) or 15 days (if they are caught inside the country).

Container courts

According to the new procedural law, which by the way infringes EU law, these refugees, which are in fact defendants, will have to go to trial without access to court translators. Their documents will not be translated, and they will not receive a translated copy of the prosecutor’s charges and verdict.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=2oIsrRp8w-E

According to information obtained by Index.hu, containers would be brought to the border to serve as temporary courts in the border crossing cases.

Juveniles will not benefit from special treatment.

Appeals will be rejected almost immediately.

The new system makes sure that the refugees will have a criminal record, and that they can be deported from Hungary with a mark in the Schengen Information System (SIS) that they committed a crime. This would automatically deny them entry into the Schengen zone for 10 years.

As a Schengen member, Hungary can add information in SIS, but adding to it asylum-seekers would be a blatant misuse of this instrument.

Orbán has devised a procedure which may breach many international laws, but he is reported to believe that other leaders will also soon be fed up with refugees, and will soon copy what he is doing. 

Read more with Euractiv

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