Tag Archives: Open Borders

Hungary outlines ‘Stop Soros’ legislation against immigration

: A man rides his moped past a government billboard displaying George Soros in monochrome next to a message urging Hungarians to take part in a national consultation about what it calls a plan by the Hungarian-born financier to settle a million migrants in Europe per year, in Szolnok, Hungary, October 2, 2017.

BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Hungary’s nationalist government outlined legislation on Wednesday to tackle illegal immigration that it says is undermining European stability and has been stoked in part by U.S. financier George Soros.

Right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban is embroiled in an escalating feud with Soros, who has rejected an extended Hungarian government campaign against him as “distortions and lies” meant to create a false external enemy.

Orban is expected to secure a third straight term in a general election due on April 8.

The legislative package, dubbed “Stop Soros” by government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs, includes mandatory registration of some non-government organizations that “support illegal immigration”, according to an emailed government position paper.

Kovacs told a news conference that a 25 percent tax would be imposed on foreign donations that such NGOs collect, and activists could face restraining orders that preclude them from approaching the EU’s external borders in Hungary. Those borders have been fortified since a migrant influx in 2015.

Kovacs added that third-country nationals could also be subject to a restraining order anywhere in the country.

Details were not immediately clear as the bills will only be published and submitted for public debate on Thursday.

But pro-government media reported that the bills could lead to a ban on Soros, who has U.S. and Hungarian citizenship, entering the country.

Soros, 87, is a Hungarian-born Jew whose longtime support for liberal and open-border values in eastern Europe have put him at odds with right-wing nationalists, especially in Hungary.

Orban’s government said in its position paper that it opposed migration through “every means possible.”

“Illegal mass immigration is a problem that affects Europe as a whole, posing serious security risks,” it said.

Asked about implications for Soros himself, Kovacs said: “If Soros is found to have engaged in such activity, meaning he organizes illegal immigration, then the rules will apply to him.” An aide for Kovacs declined to elaborate.

Last year, the Orban government introduced a measure requiring NGOs that get money from abroad to register with the state, raising alarm in the European Union and United States.

The European Commission said late last year it was taking Budapest to the EU’s top court over its NGO laws as well as a higher education law that targets Central European University in Budapest founded by Soros.

Orban is locked in a series of running battles with the EU, where Western member states and the Brussels-based executive Commission decry what they see as his authoritarian leanings, the squeezing of the opposition and the free media.

(Reporting by Marton Dunai; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Southeast Asian nations step up cooperation as Islamic State threat mounts

By Kanupriya Kapoor and Fathin Ungku

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Southeast Asian nations plan to use spy planes and drones to stem the movement of militants across their porous borders, defense officials said at the weekend, as concerns rise over the growing clout of Islamic State in the region.

Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines said they will launch joint air patrols this month at their shared boundaries in the Sulu Sea, in addition to existing maritime patrols.

Authorities in the region have urged greater cooperation to counter the fallout from a raging battle with Islamic State-linked militants in the southern Philippines, the biggest warning yet that the ultra-radical group is building a base in Southeast Asia.

“Our open borders are being exploited by terrorist groups to facilitate personnel and material,” Le Luong Minh, Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) told the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual regional security forum in Singapore.

The region is home to 600 million people and includes Indonesia, which has the world’s highest number of Muslims. Authorities in both Indonesia and Malaysia, also Muslim-majority, have said thousands of their citizens are sympathizers of Islamic State and hundreds are believed to have traveled to Syria to join the extremist group.

Indonesian authorities blamed Islamic State for bombings last month that killed three police officers, the latest in a series of low-level attacks by the militants in the last 17 months.

In recent months, dozens of fighters from Indonesia and Malaysia have crossed from their countries to Mindanao in the southern Philippines, intelligence officials have said, easily passing through waters that have often been lawless and plagued by pirates. Mindanao is the one region in the largely Catholic Philippines to have a significant Muslim minority.

ASEAN made a joint pledge with the United States on the sidelines of the Shangri-La forum to help the Philippines overcome the militant assault in the city of Marawi.

“What featured quite strongly in the U.S.-ASEAN meeting was the pledge by both U.S. and ASEAN members that we stand ready to help the Philippines…whether it’s information, intelligence or otherwise,” said Singaporean Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen.

U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis (5th L) poses for a picture with ASEAN defence leaders after a meeting on the sidelines of the 16th IISS Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore June 4, 2017.

U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis (5th L) poses for a picture with ASEAN defence leaders after a meeting on the sidelines of the 16th IISS Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore June 4, 2017. REUTERS/Edgar Su

JOINT PATROLS, INTELLIGENT-SHARING

Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, with the assistance of neighboring Singapore, have carried out joint maritime patrols in the Sulu Sea since last year after a series of kidnappings by the pro-Islamic State Abu Sayyaf group.

“We decided at least these three countries, to avoid being accused of doing nothing…We’re doing joint maritime and air patrols,” said Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, adding that the air patrols will be launched on June 19.

“If we do nothing, they get a foothold in this region.”

Indonesian Defence Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu told Reuters his country will consider deploying drones and surveillance planes at its borders with the Philippines.

The measures come amid concerns that fighters may try to escape the military offensive in the Philippines, and flee to neighboring countries.

“We believe the elements involved in the Marawi clashes may try to escape through the southern Philippines and head either for Malaysian or Indonesian waters,” said Malaysia’s counter-terrorism police chief, Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay.

“This is one of their only ways out.”

Among other measures, Singaporean and Malaysian officials said monitoring and intelligence-sharing on specific individuals had been stepped up in the wake of the fighting in Marawi.

Singapore’s Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam on Sunday urged residents of the wealthy city-state to report friends or family suspected of being radicalised, according to local media.

Security experts have warned that Southeast Asian countries are vulnerable to the spread of Islamic State as it suffers setbacks in Syria and Iraq.

“We’re seeing that, as Islamic State is losing ground on the battlegrounds of the Middle East, they’re pushing their franchise overseas as energetically as they can,” said Nigel Inkster of London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“We’re seeing this in the southern Philippines but there are other countries in Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia, that are at risk.”

(Additional reporting by Greg Torode in Singapore and Rozanna Latiff in Kuala Lumpur; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Lincoln Feast)

Germany must lift border controls, EU executive says

FILE PHOTO: Syrian refugees arrive at the camp for refugees and migrants in Friedland, Germany April 4, 2016. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Germany, Austria, Denmark and Norway should lift border controls within six months, the European Commission said on Tuesday, hours after Sweden said it was also planning to end frontier checks.

Part of the European Union’s response to a surge of refugees and migrants in 2015, the bloc allowed controls in its passport-free area, despite concerns about the impact on trade, but EU home affairs commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said they should now end.

“The time has come to take the last concrete steps to gradually return to a normal functioning of the Schengen area,” he said of the passport-free area named after a town in Luxembourg and meant to be a symbol of free movement in the bloc.

“Schengen is one of the greatest achievements of the European project. We must do everything to … protect it,” Avramopoulos said in a speech.

More than a million people sought asylum in Europe’s rich north in 2015, mostly in Germany but also in large numbers in Sweden, straining the capacity of countries to cope.

A contentious deal with Turkey to stop Syrian refugees from reaching Greece and the overland route to Germany, in return for EU funds, has reduced flows to a trickle, although thousands of migrants still try to reach Europe from Libya via sea routes.

The Swedish government said on Tuesday it would remove ID checks on journeys from Denmark into Sweden. However, its policy was not immediately clear after it said it would also maintain surveillance cameras and x-raying vehicles passing over the border.

Germany has argued it needs the controls despite the fall in migrants coming through Greece and the Western Balkans to combat the threat of Islamic militancy in Europe.

Under EU rules, the countries were allowed to impose the emergency controls for up to two years in September 2015.

The EU executive approved six-month extensions of controls at the German-Austrian border, at Austria’s frontiers with Slovenia and Hungary and at Danish, Swedish and Norwegian borders. Norway is a member of Schengen but not the EU.

EU governments must now agree to the recommendations.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott; editing by Francesco Guarascio)