Hungary: Migrants Abused at the Border | WPN World People News

Migrants at Hungary’s border are being summarily forced back to Serbia, in some cases with cruel and violent treatment, without consideration of their claims for protection, Human Rights Watch said on Jul 13.

Asylum seekers in Roszke waiting for days and weeks to be admitted to the transit zone, Hungary, March 31, 2016.

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 UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, 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, the UN Refugee Agency, 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.

The Hungarian Interior and Defense Ministries should investigate allegations of abuse implicating their officials and a civil militia that also patrols parts of the border and hold those responsible to account, Human Rights Watch said.

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 that asylum seekers and migrants could be returned to. However, under a bilateral readmission agreement with Hungary, Serbia does not accept any returns except for its own citizens and people from Kosovo.

From late September to May, there were few if any actual returns enforced, in part due to an opinion by Hungary’s Supreme Court that stated that individual asylum determinations should be made even in cases where the authorities invoked the safe third country principle. But the court withdrew its opinion in March, clearing the way for asylum seekers to be removed from transit zones to Serbia without consideration of the merits of their claims. To date, Hungarian authorities have returned 13 non-Serbian or Kosovar asylum seekers to Serbia from the transit zones without informing Serbian authorities.

Members of vulnerable groups who are moved into reception centers may still have their claims rejected without any substantive consideration. A cap on daily admissions to the two transit zones, currently at 15 per zone, means that hundreds of asylum seekers are stranded outside the transit zones on both Hungarian and Serbian territory.

On June 8, approximately 550 people were stuck outside the two transit zones in Tompa and Roszke, including 200 children and 160 women, without adequate humanitarian assistance such as shelter, showers, and proper food. A few portable toilets were finally installed by Serbian authorities at the Roszke transit zone in early June.

In June, parliament adopted a law that allows Hungarian border officials to summarily return asylum seekers and migrants apprehended up to eight kilometers inside Hungarian territory to Serbia. The law entered into effect on July 5 and according to a government press release issued the same day, authorities dispatched an additional 6,000 police to the border areas who caught and escorted 151 irregular border crossers back to Serbia during the 12 first hours of the law being in force. On July 5, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights also expressed concern that the law may result in law enforcement agencies not respecting the human rights of migrants and the violation of international law by expelling them by force without any legal procedure.

Human Rights Watch wrote to Hungary’s Office of Immigration and Nationality (OIN), and to the Hungarian Interior and Defense Ministries, on June 13 informing them of these research findings and requesting comment but has yet to receive a response.

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 in comparison with the 97 percent rate for Syrian asylum seekers in the EU. 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.

On December 10, 2015, the European Commission initiated infringement proceedings against Hungary with respect to its asylum legislation stating that it “in some instances, [is] incompatible with EU law.” At this writing, no further information about the proceedings has been made public.

EU member states should refrain from returning any asylum seekers to Hungary until it ensures meaningful access to asylum, including adequate time for a substantive in-country appeal and should halt violent and other summary returns of asylum seekers to Serbia, Human Rights Watch said.

“The abuse of asylum seekers and migrants runs counter to Hungary’s obligations under EU law, refugee law, and human rights law,” Gall said. “The European Commission should use its enforcement powers to press Budapest to comply with its obligation under EU law to provide meaningful access to asylum and fair procedures for those at its borders and on its territory.”

Source: Human Rights Watch