Czech President Miloš Zeman repeats the mantra about "illegal immigrants who should be deported to where they came from"

14. 9. 2015

If Germany closes its border with Austria, the immigrants' route will go across the Czech Republic. I repeat, that if the immigrants infringe Czech law, which will happen when they illegally cross the border into the Czech Republic, they should be immediately returned to the countries from which they came," said Czech President Miloš Zeman during his visit to the Brno Trade Fair today.

His statement was factually incorrect on several counts. According to the 1951 Geneva convention on refugees, refugees are entitled to cross the borders of countries even without documents and cannot be penalised for it. By introducing checks at the border, Germany has not decided to turn away asylum seekers. It is difficult to see how refugees could be returned to "the countries from which they came".

The opposition Civic Democratic Party demands that the Czech Republic should seal its borders. The Czech Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Secretary, the oligarch Andrej Babiš has again called for the external EU borders to be sealed. He also strongly criticised Angela Merkel: "She has first invited all refugees and economic migrants to Germany and now she is surprised that ten thousand people arrive over a single weekend. The result is chaos, catastrophic developments when the army must be used and it is incredible that international agreements are being infringed," said Babiš.

Source in Czech HERE HERE

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