Refugees: People Help as Government's Argue

LAST weekend, hundreds of Austrians drove over the Hungarian border to pick up and help refugees fleeing from war in Syria.  They did this despite warnings from the governments of Austria and Hungary that they may be breaking the law, and could be arrested. 

Had the anarchist newspaper Freedom still been in existence, and still have been being edited by someone of the abilities of say Vernon Richards or Charles Crute, I could well imagining them writing an editorial welcoming this action by people, while many governments dispute the pros and cons.  Of course, for well over a decade Freedom has not had a proper editor who could do the job convincingly. 

Last Friday, as the humanitarian crisis involving tens of thousands of migrants worsened, the Hungarian authorities introduced changes to the penal code that would place tougher measures on migrants, including a law that would make crossing or damaging the new fence 110-mile fence on its boarder with Serbia punishable by prison or expulsion.    

So bad is Hungary's seeming animosity for migrants that the United Nations has said that the Hungarian leaders had rejected assistance from the agency that supports refugees, including for the migrants at Keleti, the main Budapest railway station, where thousands were stranded last week.   

In Britain, David Cameron shifted his ground last weekend following criticism of what some critics called his apathy to the crisis, and has now agreed to accept 20,000 more Syrians, but only from camps in Syria.  Dan Bilefsky in the New York Times wrote:

'Mr. Cameron, who is trying to manage anti-immigration sentiment in the country as well as in his own Conservative Party, had been critized for dismissing on Wednesday (last week) the idea of Britain's adherence to a quota system for taking in asylum seekers who searched Europe.'

 Cameron had originally declared:  'I don't think there is an answer that can be achieved simply by taking more refugees.'

Mr.Cameron was later shamed into a u-turn by the photos of victims floating in the sea.  In contrast, the German government under Mrs Merkel has agreed  to take millions of refugees.