Seven hundred convicted foreign criminals can leave their prison cells due to unprecedented decision.Continue reading
On Monday, Austria’s Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said that his ministry would summon the Hungarian ambassador over a dispute linked to the release of people he called human traffickers by Hungarian authorities, reported Reuters.
“We think this is an entirely wrong signal,”
Schallenberg told journalists ahead of a EU meeting in Brussels, adding that he demands “full clarification” over the issue from Hungary.
As we have reported earlier, Gergely Gulyás, the Minister heading the Prime Minister’s Office announced last week the government’s decision to let 700 convicted human smugglers out of prison. The decision will apparently save billions of forints by allowing seven hundred foreign traffickers with prison sentences to leave Hungarian prisons. They will initially be placed in so-called reintegration detention and will leave the country within 72 hours.
Minister Gulyás had explained the decision by saying that
the problem of taxpayers’ money being used to keep foreign human smugglers in prison here must be solved. This is expensive, especially as there are many people involved. Moreover, the prisons are overcrowded, which is why hundreds of traffickers have been allowed to leave the country.”
By extending the reintegration detention, traffickers who have been expelled from Hungary with final effect are obliged to leave the territory of Hungary within 72 hours.
The move could be a tactic to apply pressure to countries benefiting from the enormously costly Hungarian border protection such as Austria, to contribute financially to these measures. The Hungarian government often points out that while building, maintaining, and manning the fence on the southern borders of the country had already cost over a billion euros since 2015, the European Union is unwilling to contribute financially towards these efforts; therefore, Hungarian taxpayers alone are forced to fork out the enormous sums.
Featured Photo: Facebook Alexander Schallenberg