Rights Groups Slam Hungary over Detention of Asylum-Seekers

Rights groups in Hungary slammed Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government Wednesday for its "degrading treatment" of asylum-seekers and torture victims fleeing war zones, accusing it of failing to meet obligations under EU law.

"Major and systemic shortcomings" were revealed during monitoring of closed camps in Hungary between July 2014 and January 2016, according to the report presented to journalists by refugee rights groups the Cordelia Foundation and the Hungarian Helsinki Committee.

These included lack of mechanisms to identify traumatized asylum-seekers, and factors that led to "re-traumatization" in detention like poor access to information, and medical or psychological care, as well as limitations on contact with the outside world and internal freedom of movement. 

"A significant part of asylum-seekers arriving in Europe, particularly from Syria, Afghanistan, or Somalia, are torture victims," said Lilla Hardi, a psychiatrist with the Cordelia Foundation.

One asylum-seeker cited in the report said his experience in Hungary triggered "flashbacks" of his previous torture.

"If I do fall asleep, nightmares wake me up. Right after waking up, it strikes me like an electric shock that I am again in a prison, and I am terrorized that they will hurt me again," the asylum-seeker said.

Traumatized asylum-seekers should get the protection they deserve, rather than "degrading treatment and post-migration trauma", said Marta Pardavi, co-head of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee.

The report, titled "From Torture to Detention" said between 2013 and 2015 over 9,000 asylum-seekers were detained by Hungary, for periods of up to six months.

As of February 1, some 440 people were held in three detention centers in Hungary, said Gabor Gyulai, a refugee program coordinator with the Helsinki Committee.

The government calls the centers "closed camps", but Gyulai said the facilities are were in effect "jails". 

"There are guards, dogs, camps, bars, they are locked in cells, this is detention under any standards," he said.

"Detention of first-time asylum-seekers should be used as a last resort but it has been a massively applied policy for a long time in Hungary, one of the few EU members to do so," he added. 

In some cases the shortcomings were in direct contradiction with obligations under EU law to protect torture victims from degrading treatment and ensure their medical and psychological well-being, the report concluded.

Its recommendations -- including improving access to the Internet, more freedom of movement, and involving non-governmental organizations in providing care and services -- could be implemented, as the experts and funding were available, but "there is no political will to do so", according to Gyulai.

"Scapegoating asylum-seekers is part of showing voters and the world that Hungary is a tough country, it seems human suffering is not important to the government."