10th of January We were thinking what should this short summary contain and there is really not so much to tell about the todays hearing, except that it filled us again with rage and we felt disgusted. The only time when Ahmed can leave his cell and see people is when he is taken to the court and each of these court hearings are a torture itself. The show continued today with a 4 hours long, one shot police footage without sound! It is hard to discribe the level of absurdity in how the trial is conducted. For example, the judge goes into detail about people's gestures. How many fingers did they raise? One? Two? Five? All ten? After a while the huge water cannon comes into the shot and covers more than a half of it. The judge, Kóbor Jenő, speaks to Ahmed as if he were the persecutor. He repeatedly goes into banal details, asking the same questions again and again, sometimes in a very aggressive way. While Ahmed can hardly walk because of the chains on his legs, the judge repeatedly orders Ahmed to come closer to the screen and identify himself. Also, the court discusses the actions and gestures of an unknown man (only referred to as "the green t-shirt guy") while Ahmed is not even seen in the first part of the footage. This focus on someone else than Ahmed, apparently having nothing to do with the latter, remains unexplained. In the afternoon, Ahmed is identified on screen when throwing objects. He does so. But when footage of him standing still for hours is being played, Ahmed, who is mostly defending himself, asks the judge: "What kind of terrorist would stand there and not do anything for three hours?" - A reasonably question, unanswered. While Ahmed is directly questioned by the judge for most of the time,the persecutor and the defense lawyer are having a friendly chat. Not surprisingly, the footage shows the scene at the gate only until 17:30, leaving out the part when the riot police attacked the people. All shots with police violence are missing. The court narrative is created by carefully collected, small, banal details. Obviously, the situation at the Röszke border crossing is not supposed to be considered and explained, nor its complexity. It reminds us of marketing: In order to create the "terrorist" Ahmed H., trivial details are examined in a serious-seeming, "justicial" way; anything that would lead us to comprehend the situation, however, is litteraly cut out from the set of evidences. Do they think that we are all dumb? We are following a theater play: This is the way how the legal court system works, how reality is constructed and authorized. 12th of January Today we had to watch ten more videos, mostly taken from TV-channels. Therefore they were randomly cut, without timeline and of course the part of the big "break through and hurt" of the Hungarian police was not shown - in the trial you could get the impression that the otherwise well-documented violent police attack had never happened. Without this context and the experiences the people made along the Balkan route, the rage of the people at the border could seem somehow like rebels without a cause, but of course it is not like that. On the presented videos we could clearly see the moment before the police attack, when the riot police moved back and people entered the Hungarian side. The "dangerous rioters" started to clean the space and organize the crowed in lines to pass. In the video, people are repeatedly shouting something in Arabic. When asked by the judge what they are saying, the translator explains: They are shouting "Clean the road!". Further, people are celebrating and chanting "thank you hungary". Even in these censored videos we could see and hear Ahmed (this time there was sound) how he tried to calm down the crowed telling "guys dont throw anything, dont be aggressive" and asking "please tell me what we should do" to the police. Ahmed refused to speak to the police interpreter, whom he suspects to not give a correct translation. He asked for someone who can speak English: "In Hungary nobody can speak English?" - this complaint of him was one of the highlights of today. Ahmed was also shown throwing something - what and which direction remained unclear. But one thing was obvious in all the scenes: The hours at the border were highly emotional and the actions of the people were alternating between negotiations with the police, waiting, rioting and after that chanting and shouting again. Who else is to blame but Hungary and the EU, who clearly failed with their repressive migration regime? The trial will continue on the 14th of march, first level court decision is expected on the 19th of march. Comments are closed.
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