Hungary blocked its main migrant crossing point from Serbia on Monday, hours ahead of imposing tough new laws aimed at halting the massive stream of Middle East refugees headed into the country on their way to Germany and other western European countries.
Dozens of police, supported by mounted police and soldiers, stood guard on a railway track that asylum seekers had been using to cross into the European Union. A helicopter hovered overhead.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Europe’s most outspoken foe against allowing thousands of refugees from war-torn Syria and elsewhere into the EU, spoke at a police cadet swearing-in ceremony in Budapest.
He said the new laws against the migrants call for prison terms and the punishment for human traffickers “will be so severe that it will be really deserved.”
“Hungary is a country with a 1,000-year-old Christian culture,” Orban noted. “We Hungarians don’t want the global-sized movement of people to change Hungary. This is not what we worked for and this is not why we battled through world wars, communism, the change of regime after communism and an economic crisis. We had and have a different concept of the Hungarian and European future. We want to live in order, peace and security. We don’t want chaos.”
Hungary rolled a rail container car lined from top to bottom with razor wire onto the entry point near Roszke, entirely blocking the passageway. Budapest said anyone entering illegally will face criminal charges, but it sent refugees seeking asylum to a nearby police supervised border crossing. Authorities there allowed hundreds to board buses bound for Austria.
Source-VOA
