The Keleti train station never fails to surprise. After 9 pm on Saturday night a train to Munich was stuck at the station for several hours - why? Because 200 Afghan people had been removed from the train, but refused to leave the platform and sat down to the ground. The police isolated the platform and were negotiating with the group for hours, letting the train leave four hours late from its schedule. The group was then taken inside for an official check, ensuring that all of them would be fingerprinted in Hungary.
The scene was complete with a massive mobile prison vehicle, almost ten police cars and herds of police men surrounding the sitting group. Fellow train travellers were obviously extremely irritated by the delay caused by “the migrants, of course” and the atmosphere varied from tense to nervous. Looking from afar, this group surrounded by policemen and anxious translators certainly looked like they had committed a crime of some sort.
What you couldn’t see from distance was that the group of people surrounded by police consisted of families, sleeping kids and young men who have been travelling in precarious situation for days and weeks to reach this point. Their act of civil disobedience, sitting down to the platform, was the one peaceful and beautiful thing they could do to demand their right to asylum in a safe country. They did nothing illegal by staying at the platform, regardless of how it looks like from behind the police line.
Once treated like criminals enough, these people become a very handy scapegoat for a train delay, a dirty park, or a crumbling European unity. It’s too bad that this perspective fails to see the story from inside the police blockade.
The scene was complete with a massive mobile prison vehicle, almost ten police cars and herds of police men surrounding the sitting group. Fellow train travellers were obviously extremely irritated by the delay caused by “the migrants, of course” and the atmosphere varied from tense to nervous. Looking from afar, this group surrounded by policemen and anxious translators certainly looked like they had committed a crime of some sort.
What you couldn’t see from distance was that the group of people surrounded by police consisted of families, sleeping kids and young men who have been travelling in precarious situation for days and weeks to reach this point. Their act of civil disobedience, sitting down to the platform, was the one peaceful and beautiful thing they could do to demand their right to asylum in a safe country. They did nothing illegal by staying at the platform, regardless of how it looks like from behind the police line.
Once treated like criminals enough, these people become a very handy scapegoat for a train delay, a dirty park, or a crumbling European unity. It’s too bad that this perspective fails to see the story from inside the police blockade.
Photo: Attila Stefán
PS. MÁV does not refund train tickets anymore after the train has left. When hundreds of people are prevented from boarding their trains on weekly basis, the train companies must make nice profit from these long distance tickets that will never be used.
PS. MÁV does not refund train tickets anymore after the train has left. When hundreds of people are prevented from boarding their trains on weekly basis, the train companies must make nice profit from these long distance tickets that will never be used.
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