Why Hungary is brutally defending its borders

Hungary is a nation rapidly turning into a symbol of heartless cruelty, said Róbert Friss in Népszava (Budapest). The government of prime minister Viktor Orbán has just passed a draconian law to deter migrants from claiming asylum here. Henceforth, migrants who travel through a third country before entering Hungary will be denied asylum. (The “third country” is usually Serbia, through which many Syrian and other refugees pass en route to Northern Europe.) All such migrants are now to be detained in a transit area consisting of converted shipping containers and razor-wire fencing. The UN, the EU and aid groups across Europe have condemned the plan, saying it breaches UN and EU conventions on human rights. But Orbán doesn’t care. “Migration is the Trojan horse of terrorism,” he says. “If the world sees we can defend our borders… then no one will try to come to Hungary illegally.”

And those borders are being defended with brutality, said Krisztina Than on Reuters.com. The charity Médecins Sans Frontières says its teams in Serbia are treating an ever-growing stream of migrants who report being beaten or stomped on by Hungarian border guards. And to boost the existing border patrol, Orbán has created a new police unit – to be called the “border hunters” – who will be taught judo and carry pistols, batons, pepper spray and handcuffs.

It’s tempting to get on one’s moral high horse, said Jacques Schuster in Die Welt (Berlin), but in truth, Hungary is doing our “dirty work”. Where would Germany be today if Hungary hadn’t closed its border? Let’s face it: to be able to integrate true refugees into your society, you have to “prevent mass immigration”. Hungary sees this as a matter of national survival, said József Horváth in Magyar Idok (Budapest). Our great defeat at the hands of the Ottoman Empire in 1526, when the sultan’s hordes overran Hungarians at the Battle of Mohács, is ingrained in the national psyche. And in 2015, “foreigners once again occupied our capital”– this time, some 400,000 migrants from the Middle East and Africa swarming across our land. Rather than simply succumb, Orbán swiftly closed the border and protected our country. “Some may find a 500-year-old analogy far-fetched,” yet the integrity of Hungary is no less at stake today. Islamist radicals to our south – in Bosnia, Albania and Kosovo – are gaining in strength. We are facing “a well-structured, coordinated attack on our continent” by an “aggressive, conquering ideology” of extremist Islam. This time, Hungary will not fall.