Hungary sentences refugees for breaching border fence
Patrick Strickland
Patrick Strickland
Like many other refugees and migrants who have made it to
Hungary, the 22-year-old Palestinian was arrested, charged and convicted for
breaching the fence on the country's border with Serbia.
Breaching the fence has been a crime since September 2015.
With a pair of armed guards at the door, Walid slowly walked
in and sat next to his court-appointed translator on a wooden bench at the far
end of the room.
With no laces in his scuffed sneakers, he was wearing the
clothes he was in when apprehended several days earlier: a hoodie under an
undersized travel jacket and a pair of
worn-out blue jeans.
Less than an hour later, the judge had heard all the
evidence, made up his mind and declared Walid guilty of breaching the border
fence. The judge said that Walid was banned from Hungary for at least one year.
The presiding judge during the trial of one refugees in
Hungary [Sorin Furcoi/Al Jazeera]
"I think [Walid's] hearing ran long today because there
are journalists here," the translator told Al Jazeera, speaking on the
condition of anonymity. "It is usually much shorter."
More disturbingly, the courts often reach a guilty verdict
and issue a sentence in as few as 15 minutes, handing down harsh sentences such
as one-year bans from Hungary or from the European Union's Schengen zone.
"This is a way of building legal fences as well as the
physical ones," Nora Koves, a human rights expert at the Budapest-based
Eotvos Karoly Policy Institute, told Al Jazeera.
"The law itself violates the Hungarian constitution and
European Union law," she said.
'Died a thousand times'
Andras Kovats, director of the Hungarian Association for
Migrants, says that the legal process is "very problematic from a legal
and constitutional point of view".
"On the one hand, these courts are very formal, quick
and superficial processes," he told Al Jazeera.
However, on the other hand, Kovats points out that the
courts have yet to sentence anyone to prison for breaching the fences, although
the September 2015 legislation allows imprisonment for the offence. "It is
a kind of trade off."
Sitting in the waiting room outside the courtroom, five
others who say they want to apply for asylum in Europe - Moroccans, Tunisians
and Algerians - await their turn.
Walid, who was raised in Gaza's al-Shati camp, waited more
than two years before he was allowed through the Rafah crossing into Egypt.
From there, he flew to Turkey and hired a smuggler.
WATCH: Refugees in Greece stranded as borders shut
"The boat was very dangerous," he told Al Jazeera,
referring to his dinghy journey with dozens of others across the Aegean to the
Greek islands. "We died a thousand times before we saw land."
With the help of smugglers and fellow refugees, he made it
all the way to Hungary until he was caught by police. After breaching Hungary's
fence on the Serbian border, he and four others were arrested and put in a
detention centre on March 7.
"I'm sorry you cannot photograph me, but I don't want
my parents to see me in handcuffs," Walid said, also asking that Al
Jazeera withhold his surname. "It's the first time I've ever been
arrested."
Asked why he left, he said simply: "Occupation, siege,
war, destruction, the [Palestinian] parties."
Since December 2008, Israel has launched three military
offensives in the besieged coastal enclave.
The most recent Gaza war ended in late August 2014 after 51
days of fighting. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs, Israeli forces killed more than 2,200 Palestinians,
mostly civilians, while Palestinian armed groups killed 72 Israelis, six of
whom were civilians.
"Then the siege and the fighting between the
Palestinian factions. There isn't safety and there's no future," he said.
"You live death every day [in Gaza]. Normal people - we are the ones who
pay the price."
Refugees have tried to breach the fence on Hungary-Serbian
border on several occasions [Sorin Furcoi/Al Jazeera]
'Not a crime'
On Wednesday, Hungary announced a nationwide "state of
emergency" following the closure of the Croatian and Slovenian borders to
anyone who does not have a valid European Union visa.
The interior ministry said an additional 1,500 troops and
police officers will be deployed to the country's 175-kilometre fence on the
Serbian border.
Despite these measures, refugees and migrants have continued
to make it to Hungary. During the first two weeks of March, at least 1,428 were
arrested for breaching the fence, according to the Hungarian police.
The number of refugees and migrants in open camps and closed
detention centres tripled in recent weeks, according to the rights group.
Laszlo Toroczkai, the mayor of Asotthalom, a Hungarian
village on the Serbian border, argued that Hungary should not accept asylum
seekers.
A hardline rightist and founder of the ultra-nationalist 64
Counties Youth Movement, Toroczkai was also one of the first advocates for a
fence on the Serbian border when he started promoting the idea last summer as
hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants passed through the country.
"Do we have to accept everyone whose standard of living
is worse than an average European Union citizen's? Maybe it's one billion
people," he told Al Jazeera.
Yet, Erno Simon, a senior communications officer at the
United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, in Central Europe, insists that asylum seekers
should not be punished for entering the country in an "irregular"
manner.
"According to the UN, for an asylum seeker, crossing a
border is not a crime," he told Al Jazeera. It is absolutely a normal
thing, even if an asylum seeker does it in an irregular manner … without the
proper travel documents and without the proper visa."
Back in the Szeged court, Walid sat across from the armed
guards in the waiting room after his guilty verdict was announced. He explained that he still hopes to make it
to Germany or Sweden.
"Palestinians are already refugees. We have been
occupied for almost 70 years. Now I am a refugee for a second time."
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