Serbian Refugees
Evacuees from the Serbian town of Obrenovac are seen lying on beds in a shelter hall in Belgrade, May 18, 2014. Two Russian cargo planes carrying food, generators and rescue boats land in Serbia as part of a relief effort after the worst floods in over a century kill more than 20 people in the Balkans. Reuters

On Monday, Hungary’s parliament has voted to grant the military new powers to stop refugees from entering the country.

The legislation has allowed Hungarian army to use non-lethal ways of dealing with people crossing the nation’s borders. Central Europe has already been tightly packed with the arrival of around 22,700 refugees at the weekend alone. Political leaders in Hungary have banned the border with Serbia last week to ensure no more refugees enter the country. A new anti-refugee legislation has been passed in the parliament to ban the entrants legally.

In the parliament, 152 votes were in favour of the amendment to the asylum-seekers law, which constituted two thirds of the majority required to pass the law, whereas five members from green LMP and seven independent MPs voted against the proposal along with 27 abstained votes, including socialist MSZP and one independent member.

With the passage of this legislation in the parliament, army officials now have the power to use non-lethal means of stopping refugees from crossing the border. The military people are free to ask for identification of the asylum seekers, search the packages and vehicles if they are suspicious about someone and can also detain them from crossing the border. The officials will now be allowed to monitor border traffic and use coercive ways of managing the crisis situation, whatever they think suitable.

Like the police, the military can also use firearms, tear gas grenades, rubber bullets, net guns, pyrotechnics, etc. to make sure refugees do not reach the country easily. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told the legal officials in Budapest that refugees were trying to overrun Europe. “Our borders are in danger, our way of life built on respect for law, Hungary and the whole of Europe is in danger,” the right-winger said via ABC .

Orban also said that military is needed on the Croatian and Slovenian border at this point of time.

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