Hungarian authorities denying food to failed asylum seekers

cde.news desk 26 April 2019, 16:43 · 1 min read

epa06110403 (FILE) - Migrants walk towards the Slovenian-Austrian border between Sentilj and Spielfeld, in Sentilj, Slovenia 24 October 2015. Media reports on 26 July 2017 state that European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that a law requiring refugees to seek asylum in the first country they reach applies even in exceptional circumstances. The case, brought by Austria and Slovenia, could affect the future of several hundred people who arrived during the migrant crisis of 2015-16. EPA/GYORGY VARGA HUNGARY OUT

Hungarian authorities are systematically denying food to failed asylum seekers detained in the country’s border transit zones, say rights activists.

The policy, whereby adults whose asylum claims have been rejected are denied food, was described as “an unprecedented human rights violation in 21st-century Europe” by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a human rights organisation working to offer legal support to those in the transit zones, the Guardian reports.

Since August 2018, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC), a non-governmental organization advocating for human rights in Hungary, has counted a total of 13 cases of starvation in Hungary’s transit zones, affecting 21 individuals.

Hungary’s nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has built his political programme around being tough on migration and demonising refugees and migrants. In 2015, he ordered a fence built along the country’s southern border with Serbia and regularly rails against the danger of migration in his speeches. A tax has been imposed on NGOs who work on migration-related issues.

Via The Guardian / Info Migrants /

Topics Asylum Hungary Migration