Felipe González Morales, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, recently concluded an eight-day visit to Hungary. In “civilian life” he is a professor of international law at the Diego Portales University in Santiago, Chile. Between 2008 and 2015 he served as commissioner and rapporteur on migrants at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
After spending eight days in Hungary and visiting the transit zones and two other facilities where there is a small number of refugees, he came to the conclusion that a “manufactured immigrant crisis” exists in Hungary and that the government is using the detention centers as a political weapon. In his final report, he stated that consideration of the human rights of refugees is non-existent in Hungary. Currently approximately 280 persons are housed in the two transit zones at the Serbian-Hungarian border, 60 percent of whom are under-age children, including infants. They are under constant observation by armed guards and are accompanied by guards when they move even within the detention center. In one case, apparently 17 guards accompanied a pregnant woman who was being taken to the nearby hospital for a medical examination. Another woman who needed an operation was apparently chained to her bed for five days.
Professor González Morales found the hygienic conditions to be satisfactory, but he noted that it takes months for people with serious illnesses like cancer to get treatment. The Hungarian government’s attitude toward the medical treatment of the refugees was amply demonstrated by Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó’s recent remarks during a meeting of the United Nations Economic and Social Council in New York in which he rejected the proposal that refugees and migrants must receive the same medical services as the natives.
The rapporteur failed to point out in his final report that refugees whose applications are rejected—the vast majority of those in the transit zones—are not given any food while waiting for the results of their appeal. In the past few years, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee had to turn to the European Court of Human Rights 24 times to force the Orbán government to feed inmates in the detention camps.
Source: HVG / Photo: Zsolt Reviczky
In September 2015 the government declared a “crisis alert” in two counties close to the Serbian-Hungarian border. In March 2016 the Orbán regime extended the state of alert to the whole country. It was supposed to last for six months, although it could be renewed in case of need. As I write, Hungary is still on high alert due to the non-existent refugee crisis, and we can be sure that come September it will be extended for another six months. After the fear the government planted into the heads of the people, abolishing the state of alert is simply unimaginable. In fact, Zoltán Kovács, spokesman for the government, reiterated after González Morales’s final report was made public that the fence will stay and security decisions will remain in place because there are 30-35 million people who can begin their journey to invade the continent at any moment.
As far as the rapporteur’s recommendations are concerned, we can be sure that not one of them will be taken seriously. He would like to see families with children and unaccompanied children moved from the transit zones into an open asylum reception center in Vámosszabadi, which could easily accommodate 200 or even 300 people. According to the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, there are two open reception centers in Hungary: one in Balassagyarmat and the other in Vámosszabadi. At the end of 2018, these two places combined had three occupants. These empty facilities say a lot about the so-called migrant crisis in Hungary. It simply doesn’t exist. And yet the Orbán government will not close the transit centers because, on the one hand, they serve as deterrents to would-be refugees, and on the other, they keep up the manufactured fear of the immigrants. These barbarians cannot be let loose in an open facility; they must be guarded behind barbed wire. In any case, by now the population is so frightened that the thought of migrants in an open facility would scare them to death.
The same kind of hysteria exists when it comes to the defense of Hungary’s southern border. According to the official website of the Hungarian police force, 146 billion forints was spent on border defense in 2018. This is an enormous amount of money, especially since during the same period, according to the police statistics, only 6,432 people were captured. This means that 22 million forints (€67,700) were spent on each captured refugee. This figure might be artificially inflated because the Orbán government has every intention of getting reimbursed by the European Union for its defense of the Schengen border, but, even so, these figures show the extent to which the Orbán government is ready to go to reap the political benefits of the refugee crisis.
On the website of the United Nations, González Morales described the refugees he met as “desperate, traumatized and helpless men, women, boys and girls confined behind razor wire fence in the transit zones.” To be fair, in comparison to the conditions of the U.S. refugee centers along the Mexican border, these transit zones seem like palatial accommodations. This is, of course, not praise for the heartless and cruel treatment of refugees by the Hungarian government. Rather, it is a condemnation of the Trump administration’s treatment of refugees. The U.S. detention centers are described as being so overcrowded that not everyone can lie on the cement floor at the same time. Since there is no opportunity for the migrants in the centers to have showers, people talk about the horrendous stench of sweat, urine, and feces which is present in practically all of the facilities. I never thought that the Orbán government’s cruel treatment of the refugees could be surpassed. Donald Trump has managed.
Since the needless war in Vietnam – since 1965 or so it was evident to me that the USA was surprisingly similar from the Russian’s evil behavior toward Hungary.
While the opportunity to behave more honorably the right-wing Hungarian governmental approach toward refugees and displaced people have not improved.
‘The moe things change, the more they remain the same…’
Quel dommage…
A phat american said after the collapse the Soviet Union;
“One Evil Emoire down, one to go ! ”
Meanwhile in Hungary ….
Please keep the focus on the European (Hungary included) situation! It’s serious enough – and outside Hungary, it’s really serious – with average case process-times between 2-3 years for individuals to 4-8 years for families, during which these people are confined in prison-like facilities and camps with limited contact to surrounding communities, we see wartime-like rates of suicide and prostitution, as well as highly desperate and abusive conditions among these migrants and refugees in relation to local organized crime. The few and generally slow examples of successful integration are mostly used to divert attention from the well documented conditions for the vast majority of these people.
Dear Eva,
The detention centers for the refugees were not built by the Trump Administration, nor were they changed by it. They were the same during the previously praised and faultless, Obama Administration. At that time there were no critical reports, as the media does not care about people at all. They have political agenda and they direct the attention to issues that serve that agenda. What they report is sometimes true, sometimes false, but ususlly the reporting is distorted, partial and missing inortant facts, so it can serve their political agenda, that is 100% biased and always unfair. his goes for all the major networks, especially CNN and MSNBC.
But under prior administrations including under president Bush, who I voted for by the way, these undocumented border crossers were not held in these detention centers for the length of time they are now, nor was the overcrowding anywhere near as bad as it is currently. There is also no real evidence that children were strategically separated from parents as has become the policy of this administration. There is considerable evidence that former Marine Corp General John Kelly promoted this policy while White House Chief of Staff. He in fact stated separating parents from their children could be a “tough deterrent.” (see https://www.businessinsider.com/john-kelly-family-separation-policy-illegal-border-crossing-2018-5 ) Kelly placed the blame for the child separation policy at the feet of US Attorney General Jeff Sessions eventually. I believe General Kelly gave this idea to our evil president who thought it was a good idea. If General Kelly had ordered the separation of children from their parents in a war situation dealing with refugees he would have been subject to court marshal under the provisions of the Geneva Convention under article 26 that promotes family unification of refugees created by situations of war. As a former US Army officer I am disgusted by the… Read more »
Can’t let this unanswered.
I don’t think the White House was build to house a lying, racist, incompetent POTUS.
Same with the border facilities build by Obama, not built to be abused in the way they are.
And shame on the ones who don’t recognize this, and thinks that behind reporting the truth about these inhumane camps is serving a political agenda, and therefore can be dismissed.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/inside-a-texas-building-where-the-government-is-holding-immigrant-children
Anyone who takes any NYT pieces seriously when @MaggieNYT is in the byline is a fool. She is nothing but a Trump Whisperer like people like Robert Costa, Jonathan Swan, & Glen Thrush. Michael Schmidt & Peter Baker are quickly joining that fold too.
“the media does not care about people at all”
This is just a crazy statement. And this type of treatment towards migrants did not happen under previous US presidents.
How easily manipulated you are.
GB Jr.: “the media does not care about people at all”
Well above statement just proves that people, who by themself do not care at all about other people, falsely try to project their own inhumanity on others [incl.media]!
If the Orbàn regime can treat innocent people, those who followed the pretty hopeless official process, in such illegal and cruel ways, eg. barren courtyard in the long summer heat without ac, intimidating guards, chained to bed, denial of med treatment and food, what can we expect in a real crisis, let alone an internal on posing a threat to the regime?
That said, the indisputable threat of mass migration is being more widely admitted to, but no structured response plans have been revealed, apart from the bilateral agreements with Turkey and others, afaik. These are carrots, but the flow, reduced to pre 2015 levels continue and the millions of would be refugees/migrants are still there awaiting the next war or drought to set them running.
So there must be a deterrent, and a strong one too.
It’s quite a conundrum.
Moreover the oft misguided gov responses to the refugee/ migration problem have been used by political opportunists to destabilize democracy, as we see.
[Morales] “stated that consideration of the human rights of refugees is non-existent in Hungary”.
That simple sentence says it all, for Hungary, right here, right now.
Please forget Pres. Trump. He is not a part of Hungary. He officiates in a different country.
“Human rights of refugees is non-existent in Hungary”. The sentence is worth repeating. It is worth repeating to the greedy, cynical, faux-christian embezzler who is the nominal leader of Hungary. It is worth repeating to his puppy-dog minister for foreign relations and trade, Sjiijarto, and to Zoltan’s Pox who should write it out a hundred times and hand it in to his head-master tomorrow morning.
Fuh Chrissake! This is a little country run by 1½+ Billion Euro Orbán who runs the place like his own backyard and who can’t find the pity in his heart to treat refugees with humanity and understanding! Cynical, heartless, disgraceful propaganda and manipulation.
Hang you heads in shame Hungarians for your active and passive support to this shameful regime.
But they all do the same Trump Orban Putin Erdogan … They put refugees into prison and say they are criminals. They learn from each other … and from Hitler.
It’s an old story.
“Race” was used to discriminate after religion fell out of favour, or at least the differences between the Christian varieties were no longer that important.
I’ve told that story often:
70 years ago most places in Germany e g were either Catholic or Protestant – if you had the wrong profession you were in trouble.
And afaik in Britain there was a law that excluded Catholics or generally non-members of the Anglican Church from many positions.
Discrimination is the name of the game!
#wolfi7777, 10:18am
“It’s an old story.”
No it isn’t! It is happening right here, right now and it reflects the paranoid mindset of the nasty embezzler that is “leading” this country today.
PS. Don’t forget! Religion Poisons Everything!
Bimbi, by old I meant that it’s nothing new – seems to be part of some humans’ mind – hating evrything that is foreign to them i e which they don’t understand.
And that hate is oriented vs many groups and minorities.
Stupid me thought that in the civilised world at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century we’d get rid of this – but it seems I was wrong.
@wolfi7777, 11:04 am
Yes you were, as none other than Viktor Orban attests.
@Don Kichote, 4:43 am
“But they all do the same…”
So what, DK? This blog is about Hungary. I doubt that Erdogan or Trump will read it. Please don’t add irrelevances that divert from Orban’s criminality!
PS. How many illegal immigrants did Hitler have to deal with? Remind us.
You do not understand bimbi, the System is the same and that’s why it’s not irrelevant.
@Don Kichote, 11:07 am
No, I don’t understand. So what if the “System” is “the same”, what relevance does that have to Orban’s disgraceful and vindictive behaviour towards migrants in today’s Hungary? Please don’t forget to answer my Hitler questions as well.
Bimbi do you want to fool Kichote?
Well, as far as I understand Don, he points out that all he named are following the same master plan: a hatred group (“illegal immigrants”, Jews, Gülen movement….) that are guilty for literally everything and the nation has to fight against. Battle roar to tighten power. Same kind of propaganda about “we” against “them” to unify the population. In this understanding Orbán learned from Hitler and Orbán and Erdogan from each other. It is correct to point out that the ideologies and methods are comparable and the understanding where it might end is important. These facts do not diminish the crimes of Orbán, but put them into a context, but are a warning.
Very good, thanks!
Before of after he made Austrian, Czechoslovakian and German Jews stateless, bimbi? Hitler was a master of making others unpersons, and, yes, they were heavily involved during the Évian Conference convincing everyone not to take in their stateless cirizens.
When some of them did manage to board a ship in France, and America turned them back, they were accepted in Belgium, until they were overrun and sent to camps. To answer your question, a lot.
Our actions in the USA help legitimize the actions of the Fidesz government towards asylum seekers. Orban uses the cover of Christianity and Christian culture for racism, Trump really does not bother with that, because it strategically does not work here since the bulk of asylum seekers from Central America are in fact Catholic or charismatic Christians. Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, when Governor of Indiana fought hard against Pope Francis and the Catholic Church’s attempt to resettle Syrian refugees in Indiana. Citing security concerns after last November’s Paris attacks, Pence tried to pressure the local Catholic Charities in Indiana into longer welcoming and housing refugees fleeing violence and terrorism in the Middle East. However, Joseph Tobin, Indianapolis’s archbishop, courageously defied the governor’s orders. Tobin said at the time that welcoming refugees “is an essential part of our identity as Catholic Christians, and we will continue this life-saving tradition.” The fact that Steve Bannon has effectively become Trump’s special envoy to the racist anti-immigrant political formations of Europe speaks to the linkages between Trump and European fascism. His open admiration for Orban speaks volumes to these linkages. I applaud Eva pointing out our own nation’s current sad record on dealing… Read more »
Re: protecting a nation’s borders and how it is done..
Both Orban Magyarorszag and the United States of Trump, two highly qualified countries for stoking new found popul-nativism, are examples of now of stirred up ire fused with glaring incompetence tinged with insolence directed against other human beings.
These leaders hate well always dragging along ‘the people’ to act out their private resentments. The themes of ‘send her back’, ‘send them back’, ‘keep them out’ show how the ineptness of rational thought to an issue simply succumbs to a substitution of spewing out emotional verbal violence. For these two mavens of malevolence it’s the best and closest thing to be done short of bringing out the heavy metal against upstarts.
If we are in new lows with these two and their propagandists they have raised inarticulateness to new heights . The ‘duhs’ echo to high heaven.
@Istvan, 8:16 am
I agree with you! Religion Poisons Everything!
Forget Pence, Trump, Tobin, Bannon, Fascism, Catholicism and christianity.
There is one person, one mind behind the treatment of refugees in Hungary and that perverted mind belongs only and exclusively to the embezzler Viktor Orban.
Really only Orbán … I do not think so. Wait, I look out the window … no, not just Orbán.
Istvan the system is always the same. Lust and hatred of whatever. Element Roma is a thief, element Muslim is a terrorist, Element Jew is inferior, you have already defended the element Muslim if I remember correctly. Because when you go to war you need such elements to calm your conscience. That’s my opinion whether Orban Putin Erdogan Trump or Hitler.
@Don Kichote, 8:47 am
Please explain (no, don’t) how your comment helps the maltreated refugees in Orban’s Hungary.
“The system is always the same”, “lust and hatred of whatever.” we are all fucked (that must be where the “lust” comes in…
Bimbi There are people who draw a circle around themselves in the fit only themselves. Then there are people who draw a circle to fit into the whole nations. There is also everything between the circles. Orban is the former who Mrs. Merkel rather the second.
Lust comes through a translation error actually I wanted to write greed but lust for power is also the desire and therefore I left it that way.
g ro@Don Kichote, 12:26 pm
Oh yes, right. Everyone is going round in circles.
So what? How does this explain why Orban behaves in such an appalling and inhuman manner to would-be migrants?
Bimbi it is a pictorial idea a circle in which only one can stand or a circle in which 500 000 000 EU citizens find space.
Sometimes you do not understand why the other one does not understand. When I tell my wife what she needs to do on the computer for it to work, two big question marks look at me … and I wonder why.
Let’s take the circle that is supposed to be the Responsibility and which people belong there. Let’s take a stupid farmer from a village who draws a circle when asked, “Who do you want to be responsible for?”
Although Orbán is married and has a bunch of kids but … to be honest, to me it looks like he’s just married to the EU tax money and not to his wife.
We take this stupid village farmer who draws a circle around himself. Although he is married only not with his wife. His kids do what Daddy says they take care of themselves.
Now imagine this stupid village peasants before deciding whether to enlarge his circle … what does he say?
Historically that is true Don, the USA informally put a racial spin on many wars. In Vietnam many GIs called the Vietnamese gooks, I did not in particular because I worked directly with South Vietnamese forces who were Catholic just like I am. Our forces in Africa called people skinnies referencing their malnutrition, in World War I we called Germans Huns, and on and on. I do not think it was promoted to ease the conscience of troops so much as it was designed to instill hate for the enemy being less human than themselves. I never needed to hate an enemy force in order to destroy them, it was a job that as a member of the US armed forces I was required to do on occasion over my career. War is a horrible thing and many participants need to rationalize it through hate. I personally never needed to do so and I don’t really know why that was the case. Although I did hate those whether among the US forces and allies or our opponents who killed unarmed civilians, murdered helpless wounded enemy combatants, or even in some cases killing poor peasants live stock that were critical for… Read more »
I speak for myself, I have refused military service. It does not mean that the military service is superfluous. But for me, I can not kill a human, and I do not see another human killing on the battlefield just because a stupid politician wants it. These people are not worse than my friends or acquaintances or neighbors.
Philosopher and Orban critic Agnes Heller dies
I saw this on nepszava online earlier today. The post has disappeared since then.
She died on July 19 at the age of 90 years in Balatonalmádi.
That’s reported all over the international media. Here’s a short, very positive report on her life from the leading Singapore (!!!) online paper:
https://www.todayonline.com/world/hungarian-philosopher-agnes-heller-dies-age-90
And of course the German SPIEGEL reports:
https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/plattensee-bad-balatonalmadi-ungarische-philosophin-agnes-heller-gestorben-a-1278215.html
RIP Agnes – we will miss you!
PS:
I’m sure Eva will also have something to say on her.
And it will be interesting how the North Korean State Media, sorry Hungarian media and the Very Fake No News Agency V4NA report on this – if at all!
I can not load the page http://hungarianfreepress.com/ Error 503 No response from the server.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhBPCLiIc3o
HITLER ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ··· Perhaps not offtopic, Angela Merkel just finished commemorating the STAUFFENBERG attempt to off Adolf, who (Valkyrie-blessed) lived to fight for his ideals for 9 more months. What bothers me is that Stauffenberg is made to sound like a resistance fighter, however he was after all a NAZI, one who (amongst many) had become disillusioned with the regress of the German war effort.
A quarter of a century to the day later, the Americans landed on the Moon at 20:17:40 UTC. Three quarters of a century later, Merkel drives a stake into the collective heart of the neonazis of AfD. May they die unpeaced.
MAGYARKOZÓ
In her latest press conference she also called for solidarity with the SQUAD, those four female Dems that Trump wants to “send home”.
And the boss of Siemens called Trump a racist too!
@wolfi7777, 10:43 am
Oh yes and she also congratulated the England cricket team on their scintillating win over New Zealand in the Cricket World Cup…
Stauffenberg a Nazi? Stauffenberg was member of old nobility with a good portion of snobbery, a conservative, a nationalist and highly influenced by mythology. All this is correct. If Stauffenberg was racist in general or especially an anti-Semite is discussed, but there is no broad agreement about. I tend to answer the question with yes. He joined the army before Hitler came to power and remained in duty until his execution. Although it is known that he agreed with Hitler in cases he did not surrender his mind under the ideology. 2 Stauffenberg quotes from 1939: “Der Narr macht Krieg.” (The fool makes war) „Wir können es uns nicht leisten, uns in den rein soldatischen, soll heißen rein fachlich beruflichen Bereich zurückzuziehen“ (We cannot permit ourselves to withdraw into the purely soldierly, meaning purely specialist professional field) So your suggestion Stauffenberg was a Nazi, who just “had become disillusioned with the regress of the German war effort” is not correct. And he was not alone, he was just the man who brought the bomb to Hitler, because he had easy access. Indeed a huge part of the group came from the military and / or had a comparable background. But… Read more »
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/how-trump-invoked-kkk-slogan-love-it-or-leave-it-at-north-carolina-rally … SBS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-WgjGB1yrY … DW
TRUMP ··· Love it or leave it !!!
ORBÁN ··· Dont even think of coming here !!!
MAGYARKOZÓ
I honestly think President Trump likely picked up on the love it or leave it rhetoric from the right wing lawyer he was associated with for many years named Roy Cohen (see https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/06/donald-trump-roy-cohn-relationship ). It was a phrase also used repeatedly against anti-Vietnam war protesters by right wing supporters of the war in the 1960s and early 1970s, generally not by Democratic Party supporters of the war like President LB Johnson. The Klan being racists of course fully supported a war of extermination against the yellow communists and took up the love it or leave it rant. Roy Cohen was anti-communist US Senator Joe McCarthy’s questioner during his hearings relating to his probes of the communist party USA and its influence in the USA in the 1950s. McCarthy was eventually discredited. For Trump the draft evader to use that phrase is the hight of irony. I will admit I did not want to get drafted either and sent into the killing fields and joined ROTC in college to assure I would at least complete college before going to war because ending the college deferment for the military draft was debated for years in the US Congress prior to it happening.… Read more »
As things stand, a huge retcon is in the works for McCarthy.