- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
Norway may put a fence along part or all of the 123-mile border it shares with Russia, a move inspired by a similar project in its Nordic neighbor Finland.
Archived version: https://archive.ph/1WMyN
The point of mentioning the road crossing points were that those places are reinforced, and yeah, it’s silliness to attempt it there, leaving no possible places to take a truck over the border due difficulty terrain - we’re talking about migrants here, not soldiers.
They aren’t using vehicles, the russians provided migrants bicycles to get to the crossing points when they had the “flood our border with immigrants” operation active some months ago.
That leaves us with one large issue to cover: people traversing the foresty areas by foot, attempting to slip in undetected. That’s where the fence comes in - they can obviously get over it if they bring a ladder, but as they struggle to even have proper shoes, a ladder becomes a luxury item they cannot afford. In any case, the fence is a slowing measure. The fence also contains alarm systems and surveillance, so that our border patrol can then pinpoint where they are needed ASAP.
The border patrol people themselves wanted this, and it’s been working well.
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Sorry, that was badly worder. What I meant was that migrants were able walk over the border from wherever, whenever. It wasn’t a huge issue historically, we’re talking about a few dozen people a year maybe, because the border area is so rural, so not many asylum seekers dared to trek there. To do so, would have required ample provisions and good clothing. Surveilled fences solved that issue.
Things however changed early this year:
1. We noticed a new phenomen, asylum seeker numbers at border crossings suddenly skyrocketed. Soon enough reporters were noticing military transports bringing people from other parts of Russia to towns closer to our borders. Some immigrants were also pushed towards crossing the border illegally, at the southern area.
2. It was confirmed that Russia was providing transportation to scores of Somalian and Syrian migrants, pushing them to seek asylum from Finland, in an effort to destabilize us, and cause issues at the border.
3. Many of those asylum seekers went into hiding after being granted entry, something normal asylum seekers seldom do, as we have good social benefits systems in place that help asylum seekers a fair chance to restart their lives. The fear was that those disappeared people were Russian agents, and indeed random ifrastructure sabotaging has increased radically following the project by Russia. The worries we had turned out to be correct.
4. These migrants, in interviews, stated that they weren’t actively trying to seek asylum in Finland - Russia had pushed them to the border. They were loaded in trucks from south and east Russia, then taken closer to Finnish borders. It’s been reported that Russia even providing them with bicycles to make the final stretch.
Enter today: A few new laws and improved fences are in place now. Both plug the loopholes used by Russia. We have now laws in place to stop the phenomenon, legally, at the border, and we also have more time to respond and catch the ones who attempt an illegal border crossings.
And now, how this all ties into the news article in this thread: After all the changes we made, the next loophole they started to utilize was pushing people to Norway first, and from there on forwards. Norway is now waking up to the same reality that affected us earlier this year, and thus are starting on the same path.
It’s not all in attempt to just cause issues with Finland, getting into the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area easily and then having easy time to get deeper into EU is one of the things their saboteurs are utilizing.
These are just new sort of cold war tactics by the Russkies, and it’s sad they are using people as fodder.
This all seems like even more reason to be channeling resources into the security needed to stop well equipped Russian saboteurs, as well as systems to better find people who disappeared or traveled to foreign countries after they were welcomed across the border, instead of a fence that does neither.
The fence has been effective ever since it was put up, not sure what you are on about.
I thought you just said the issue the government needed to solve was random people wandering across the border without realizing it. People crossing or being trafficked across Russia in an attempt to exercise their right as a human being under article 14 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, an agreement specifically drafted with the goal of facilitating large movements of persecuted people in the wake of nations turning away people fleeing the Holocaust, well those people are either trying to find and be collected by the border agents or being trafficked and falsely terrified they’ll be sent back to horrific abuse if their discovered by the border patrol instead of welcomed in, so why would a fence change anything about the number of them trying to get out of a dangerous foreign nation?
I mean it’s not like Norway would be trying to discourage them from holding it to the obligations the nation signed and agreed to that require it to thoughtfully and thoughly analyze each of their claims in court, now would it? I mean if they don’t have even proper shoes, Norway is of course going to spare no expense in welcoming as many of them as show up as quickly as possible, and as such undercutting human trafficking by showing how easy and risk free the alternative is, right?
It apparently has all this extra money to spend on a changing a border system that is currently working very well in your own words.
Also, you realize we are talking about a press release about the Norwegian government considering future fencing of more of the Russian-Norwegian border, and not the system as it exists currently, right?
And that this boarder fencing functionality requires a nice, level, drivable trail to be cleared through the wilderness either side of it to be built and maintained, right?
And why exactly are these people not trying to get that asylum in Russia since they’re already traveling through the whole North-South length of it or in any countries in-between their country of origin and Russia? For people in acute need of asylum it does seem suspect that they’re making a long and costly trip through whole of Europe and large parts of Middle East and North Africa, though several countries where they could apply for that asylum, only to seek asylum in Norway-Russia border.
It doesn’t help that Russia and Belarus have used migrants as a tool of their influence operations and been allowing traffickers to operate and even helping them out.
Um, so let’s think about this. Why are people fleeing the Russian military and its operations to secure the power of its chosen allies in Syria not rushing to seek asylum in the country that blew up their homes in the first place? I mean Russia is obviously such a great nation to live in, with its very high standards of living and no possibility of being forced to either join the Russian military or being handed over to the very regime you are claiming asylum from.
I also didn’t realize that Türkiye and Russia, the two nations between Syra and Norway, represented ‘the whole of Europe and large parts of the Middle East and North Africa’.
I guess the one poor country already hosting 3.2million refugees is handling it very well, as there have been absolutely no race riots, violence, or mass deportations back to Syria, and we should expect every single refugee to stay there instead of attempting to make a claim in any other nation.
I also missed that line in the UN declaration of human rights that says you can ignore applying these rights to people if the Russians are also being dicks to them. /s
It’s not about shopping for a great country to live in, that’d be just migration. It is about finding asylum from persecution etc. If they’re willing to travel very far to find one with the best quality of life until they make their asylum request, then that does sound very suspects. That’s not the point of the system and just makes things worse for those needing acute protection.
And I’m not sure if you are being purposefully obtuse about the system but also of the fact that there’s quite a few other countries closer to Syria than Norway and plenty of opportunities to apply for asylum. And of the fact that it’s not just Syrians who are doing the asylum requests but people from a lot further away.
When people paying hefty sums to traffickers and organizing trips through several countries to the far North instead of anywhere closer and aren’t willing to settle for anything other than Norway for example, it does put into question their motivation. Whether it’s acute need of protection, war, famine such a thing or just seeking for a better life.
Again, Norway is actually very close at just two nations away, one of which has regular race riots and has still taken in literally millions of refugees, while the other is the one that installed the regime persecuting them and is fucking Russia.
Most of the nations that are closer are either filled with religious persecution, so impoverished as to require vast amounts of western food aid just to feed their own people, or are already taking in orders of magnitude more refugees than Norway.
Why should the aid a nation provides the international community be based solely on geographical proximity? Does this mean that Norway should also not provide any aid to Ukraine, as it is also geographically far away? Why should it only the the poor nations that should do their part to take in people in distress and not the rich?
When so much of the world is impoverished and struggling to survive itself, why is it so ‘suspicious’ that when people are forced to start over from scratch they might try and do so in the lands of over abundance and where their children don’t have to worry about being beaten to death by a mob or living in Putin’s Russia?
Lmao it’s whole North-South lenght of Russia. That’s like saying Finland is very close to North Korea since there’s just one country between us and them. You are being silly.
It just makes sense that if you are in need of acute protection from persecution or are temporary displaced and need a temporary shelter that you’d seek it close to you, instead of organizing a trip to where you’d think the quality of life is the best and skip applying in counties you’re passing through.
If you are just looking for a place with a nice quality of life to settle in, you do seem more like a migrant than an asylum seeker in need of acute protection.
I get wanting to live in a rich country but that’s not what the asylum system is about. It’s not a human right to get to live in Norway. At that point it’s just immigration and they should do that through proper channels instead of frankly abusing the asylum system. In the long run that will just fuck up the whole system.
Given that it’s takes months of work to cross a border for a refugee but it’s only a three day drive from Sochi to the Norwegian border, yes, the number of borders absolutely matters more than physical distance.
Show me where in article 14 it says that this right only applies the geographically closest nation and all others are except.
Or, because you keep insisting that there are so very many safe nations with unlimited resources and food for people to wait out the collapse Russia and its puppets with only one nation between them and Syria, list them.
Note, these nations must not be a theocracy or limit the freedom of religion, not currently be at war, have an effective refuge program that does not limit the number of entrants, and of course not be in need of significant international aid themselves.
See, this is the shopping I meant. For some reason it has to be a wealthy land of plenty like Norway that they make their application in even though the point is just to seek protection, not to just pick a country that fits your bill for the best place to live. Nowhere in article 14 it is said that the asylum application guarantees that you’ll live in a wealthiest of wealthy European country while your status is processed. But somehow these people find the money and means to apply in such countries instead of accepting lesser conditions.
Jordan for example is right next door to Syria and understandably a lot of Syrians have went there. But these certain desperate people in need of acute protection skip over Turkey and whole of Russia to apply in Norway instead.
I don’t fault them for wanting a better life and Norway is an excellent pick. But of course it’s easy to see why them being serious asylum seekers is taken with a pinch of salt and they’re often just treated as migrants.
I think everyone does that to a degree.