Fence Hungarian government is building on Hungary-Serbia border. Demotix/ Maciej Krawczyk. All rights reserved.In June 2015 the Hungarian government gave orders to construct a 4 m high and 175 km long fence along its border with Serbia in order to keep away the mounting influx of asylum-seekers, collectively labeled “livelihood immigrants”. True, building physical barriers on the EU's external borders is neither illegal nor an exclusively Hungarian phenomenon. But both rhetoric and legislation in refugee policies reveal a truly gruesome picture which gives every reason to be alarmed.
The fence invokes a sad symbolism. It is still hard not to see the irony that the country which 26 years ago opened its western border for thousands of East German refugees headed to West Germany, and thus kicked off the process that led to the tearing down of the Iron Curtain, is now building fences in the face of the biggest refugee crisis in postwar Europe. Not to mention the exodus of some 200, 000 Hungarian refugees in the wake of the revolution of 1956 who were welcome and embraced in all parts of the world.
But overall, it is neither the symbolism nor any breach of EU-legislation that causes concern. It is the specific practices and broader context of Hungarian refugee policy in which stigmatizing is normal, detention is frequent, the government is running an openly hostile hate-campaign and current changes in asylum rules order practically automatic rejection of asylum seekers entering via the Balkans (meaning virtually everyone) without individual assessment of their claims.
