HRW: Migrants abused at the Hungarian border
New laws and procedures adopted in Hungary over the past year force all asylum seekers who wish to enter Hungary to do so through a transit zone on Hungarian territory, to which the government applies a legal fiction claiming that persons in the zone have not yet ‘entered’ Hungary. Human Rights Watch found that while some vulnerable groups are transferred to open reception facilities inside Hungary, since May 2016 the Hungarian government has been summarily dismissing the claims of most single men without considering their protection needs.
“Hungary is breaking all the rules for asylum seekers transiting through Serbia, summarily dismissing claims and sending them back across the border,” said Lydia Gall, Balkans and Eastern Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch. “People who cross into Hungary without permission, including women and children, have been viciously beaten and forced back across the border.”
Restrictions on the numbers of people who can the enter the transit zones mean that hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers, including women and children, are stuck in no-man’s land in very poor conditions waiting to enter the transit zones. Human Rights Watch found that asylum seekers and other migrants who try to enter informally without going through the transit zone are forced back to Serbia, often violently, without any consideration of their protection needs.
Human Rights Watch interviewed 41 asylum seekers and migrants, as well as members of a nongovernmental group, staff of the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), human rights lawyers, activists, staff at the Hungarian Office of Immigration and Nationality, and Hungarian police. Those interviewed included three men who had been returned to Serbia from the transit zones after their claims were ruled inadmissible without any substantive consideration of their asylum claims or adequate time to prepare an appeal.
Human Rights Watch also interviewed 12 people who were apprehended on Hungarian territory after trying to enter irregularly who said they had entered Hungary in groups including women and children. They said they were brutally beaten and abused by officials and then pushed back to Serbia. They said that officials often used spray that caused burning sensations to their eyes, set dogs on them, kicked and beat them with batons and fists, put plastic handcuffs on them, and forced them through small openings in the razor wire fence, causing further injuries.
One man who had been stopped inside Hungary in a group of 30 to 40 people, including women and children, said they were beaten for two hours: “I haven’t even seen such beating in the movies. Five or six soldiers took us one by one to beat us. They tied our hands with plastic handcuffs on our backs. They beat us with everything, with fists, kicks, and batons. They deliberately gave us bad injuries.”
Another member of the group, who still had visible injuries 16 days later, said the police set dogs on the group, causing him to fall, and that a police officer either kicked or hit him in the face as he lay on the ground.
On May 25, UNHCR expressed public concern about reports of pushbacks of asylum seekers at the Hungarian border, in some cases involving violence, and called on Hungarian authorities to investigate.
Hungary built a razor wire fence to keep migrants out in September 2015 and two transit zones on its border with Serbia to which it initially returned some people after the government, in July, declared Serbia a safe third country to which that asylum seekers and migrants could be returned. However, under a bilateral readmission agreement with Hungary, Serbia does not accept any returns except for its own citizens and people from Kosovo.
Available evidence suggests that Serbia should not be considered a safe third country, meaning it is not a country in which an individual asylum seeker has protected rights in line with the Refugee Convention. Human Rights Watch has documented serious abuse of asylum seekers and migrants and shortcomings in the asylum system, including lack of protection for unaccompanied children. Of 583 asylum applications in 2015, a majority from Syrians, only 16 people received refugee status, and 14 subsidiary protection, a low recognition rate when compared to the 97 percent rate for Syrian asylum seekers in the European Union. Due to the flaws in Serbia’s asylum system, the UNHCR’s current guidance is that Serbia should not be considered a safe third country and urges states not to return people to Serbia. (with AP, HRW)
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