One of the core values of MigSzol is freedom of movement. This position radically challenges the prevalent way of thinking shared by NGOs, international organizations and Hungarian authorities working on migration issues. They approve of detention in exceptional circumstances, while Migszol categorically rejects it. The following points are just some of the questions engendered by detention that will be explored by MigSzol over the next six weeks in a special series of blogposts.

Firstly, as a recent Hungarian Helsinki Committee report notes, detention of asylum seekers has become a routine practice to regulate migration. Far from being used only in exceptional cases, as it was initially conceived, detention in Hungary is a deliberate, arbitrary, and frequently employed measure of ‘containing’ first-time asylum-seekers. It crassly targets males, and blatantly disregards the diverse vulnerabilities of asylum-seekers.  

Secondly, history has shown that imprisonment has been a preferred measure of the powerful to silence the voices of the weak. By detaining asylum-seekers and migrants in general, the Immigration Office (OIN) and the Hungarian government deny them the right of self-determination, and the basic freedom to shape their daily well-being. How can people be treated so indiscriminately and unapologetically bad by their fellow humans, and afterwards persuaded to become democratically involved in the affairs of the Hungarian polity? How can people be asked to integrate and learn the language in Hungary, if their first welcome to the country is through the doors of a jail? To any outside observer this feels like a fundamental betrayal of the ideals of justice and liberty from tyranny championed so publicly by Prime Minister Orbán himself in the 1989 Revolution.

Thirdly, as civil wars, climate disasters and abject poverty leave their bloody scars on the skin of history, the first words of the Preamble to The Universal Declaration of Human Rights echo ever more loudly today : “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world...”. Considering that the same document’s ninth article forbids “arbitrary arrest, detention or exile”, how can one reconcile the bitter reality with the high ideals that democratic countries such as Hungary have sworn to uphold, not only for themselves but for the common good of the “human family”? 

On Saturday morning I was a little bit late, as usual. As I was hurrying down  on Nepszinház utca, I was distracted from my thoughts by a loud conversation between two Hungarians on the tram stop. Clearly shocked, a woman was exclaiming to her companion: “De HOGY lehet egy néger hajléktalan Magyaroszágon?!” (But HOW can there be a homeless black person in Hungary?!)

Full stop. I turn back, realising that they were talking about a man that was sleeping on a bench next to the supermarket down the road. I had also noticed him, in fact, I know him. I approached the couple, apologized for intervening, and told them that the man is homeless in Budapest since several years, is a refugee from Sierra Leone, has some health issues and is unfortunately not even allowed to work in Hungary as he has basically fallen out of the system. The woman, clearly happy to receive more information on the topic, double checked what I had just said. So he was a refugee? How unfortunate. Was there no help available for him? Were there more homeless refugees? Unfortunately, I was still in a hurry, and still late, so I quickly told them that the condition of homelessness is very common among refugees in Hungary, that there is some help but it is very limited, and that they could check out Migszol Csoport on Facebook. I left them to discuss the matter among themselves and continued running towards Blaha.

Since we last wrote about the Vámosszabadi open camp, MigSzol went to Györ on Saturday, 26 July 2014, and talked with refugees and asylum-seekers living in the camp. Although further investigation by MigSzol and explanations from the Office of Immigration (OIN) are needed, we feel the testimonies we have gathered need to be brought to light.

Surrounded by barren farmland 8 km from the village of the same name, the camp in Vámosszabadi houses approximately 200 men, women and children, although the number of asylum seekers in the camp also fluctuates a lot. Fearing a life-time of persecution, poverty and in some cases, death, they have travelled to Hungary from places such as Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Kosovo, Sudan and others. Now, under the auspices of the imminent change of the legislation on migration, MigSzol revisits one of the 
‘better’ Hungarian open camps.