Hungary / Consequences of the 8km law and violence at the border‏

Dear all,

Here is our latest update on developments in Hungary: the consequences 
of the 8km law, violence at the border, planned closure of the open camp 
in Bicske, and much more.

Best,
Annastiina / Migszol

http://www.migszol.com/blog/the-catastrophic-consequences-of-the-8km-law-and-violence-at-the-hungarian-serbian-border


The catastrophic consequences of the 8km law and violence at the 
Hungarian-Serbian border

6/8/2016

This is a Migszol update on the general asylum situation in Hungary 
between 4th July - 4th August 2016. For information for people seeking 
asylum, please see the information provided by the Hungarian Helsinki 
Committee in here.

The 8km law and violence on the border
Escalating situation on the transit zone
Continuous protests in the detention centers and emptying camps
Propaganda and conspiracy theories

The 8km law and violence on the border

The 8km law, that we wrote about earlier, took effect on the 5th of 
July. According to the legislation, anyone who is caught within 8m on 
the Hungarian side of the border fence may be “escorted” back to the 
Serbian side of the fence. This legalizes the pushbacks of people to the 
Serbian side and severely restricts people’s right to seek asylum. In 
practice, those caught and pushed back are not given a chance to ask for 
asylum, which is contrary to international law. We find it cruelly 
ironic that at the same time the Fidesz government claims that the 
border fence is working, the Hungarian authorities are cutting holes to 
this fence in order to push people back to the Serbian side. The results 
of the law have been catastrophic: the number of people waiting at the 
transit zone to apply for asylum at the border has doubled. There is no 
legal help available, civilian volunteers and activists have limited 
access, and the living conditions are abysmal, as this video from 
Migszol Szeged also shows.


Mayor of Asotthalom, Laszlo Toroczkai, posing near the Hungarian-Serbian 
border fence with his dog. Photo from his Facebook page.
More urgent still, following numerous complaints and reports from UNHCR 
Hungary and the Helsinki Committee, the very encounter with the 
Hungarian police, military or border vigilantes is dangerous for the 
people crossing the border. We are informed that pepper spray and 
trained dogs are used to intimidate and sometimes physically harm people 
to push them back to the border. You can read here the latest Human 
Right Watch report on the abuse and police violence at the Serbian 
Hungarian border. The Ministry of Interior denies the claims made in the 
HRW report.

The situation and violence at the border zone is instilling terror in 
the people who would dare cross the fence. Recently László Toroczkai, 
the mayor of Ásotthalom, a conspiracy theorist also suggesting that 
George Soros is supporting international activists, held a press 
conference in Budapest demanding for more power for the vigilantes at 
the border. Toroczkai claims that local villagers are better than police 
at catching people seeking protection because of their better knowledge 
of the territory. In a clear move towards encouraging self-organized 
forces with the power to use violence, Toroczkai poses with his new dog, 
which he is training to guard the border, and also added a photo of 
three Afghans his vigilante field guards caught. We also hear daily 
reports from people who have returned from the border to Belgrade after 
having been severely beaten at the border by “men in uniforms.” We are 
demanding a clarification concerning the immense power that the 
Ásotthalom mayor is taking for himself and his paramilitary group in 
capturing people, posing with them as if they were wild game, with zero 
respect towards their privacy and their right to seek asylum, and his 
recorded testimony asserting that those people he recently captured had 
a lot of money on them.

Also, lights are being installed on the border fence, Toroczkai reports. 
He, as a true hunter, does not like the lights because it will lighten 
up the field guards. In a separate recent episode of Toroczkai’s hunting 
spree, he posted a photo of three Moroccans caught, while arguing that 
the police and the army cannot do their job but the locals can.

In addition to the established violence encouraged by Toroczkai, the 
Hungarian TV station ATV has a recorded conversation where Zsolt 
Tyirityán, the leader of Betyársereg (“Outlaws’ Army”, a paramilitary 
vigilante group) is explaining at a ‘self-defense camp’ that they have 
actively taken part in protecting the borders, and that they were asked 
to do it by the representatives of the “system.” Asked who is the 
“system,” he said he can only “tell more details around a beer”, but 
that the army and the police need these self-organized civic sports 
circles. In the end of July, the Hungarian newspaper HVG reported that 
yet more extreme right vigilante groups are starting to patrol the 
border.

Another layer of the ever expanding system that aims at policing the 
border zone is constituted by the most recent activity of a group of 
foreign border guards, whose mission is to help Hungarian border guards 
for a month. This move should not be considered lightly, as it indicates 
a dangerous European wide project of deepening the so called management 
of the borders through sharing of police forces and information beyond 
the powers of Frontex.

We are deeply disappointed at this cooperation, which signals 
international approval of the practice at the Hungarian-Serbian border. 
Indeed, after recent visit by the Austrian Chancellor Kern to Budapest, 
Austrian and Hungarian governments agreed to cooperate in order to limit 
people’s access to Hungarian territory in order to seek asylum.

Although Viktor Orbán’s asylum policy is extremely cruel, and denies 
basic rights of people, we would like to remind that his actions are not 
only silently approved by other European governments - indeed, 
governments such and Slovakia and Austria actively cooperate and signal 
their approval, and the European Commission itself has in its recent law 
proposal adopted many of the aspects of the Orbán asylum policy that it 
earlier criticized as inhuman. Note, in addition, that Austria is 
starting to build a fence on the Hungarian border.
Picture
A "field guard" of Laszlo Toroczkai posing next to three people that 
were caught on the border in July. Photo blurred by France24, published 
originally on the Facebook page of Toroczkai.
Recently, Alexander Vulin, the Serbian Social minister has said that 
Hungary is violating international law by deporting people back to 
Serbia within the framework of the 8km law. The Serbian authorities are 
doing little to respond to the rights of people travelling through their 
territory and reports of police abuse, structural lack of response to 
basic needs or legal aid to travellers through Serbia is well reported. 
In actual fact, the self righteous rhetoric of both Serbia and Hungary, 
but also EU member states who silently approve of their policies, is a 
smoke screen that covers the abandonment of the people living in tents 
in between the two countries. Many people go through Belgrade every day, 
where hundreds of people are sleeping in the public parks because they 
are not able to exercise their right to seek international protection in 
the European Union. Many are also staying in the Subotica camp in 
Northern Serbia,y or are waiting in unofficial transit camps, assisted 
by volunteers who provide food and other basic items for the people 
trapped in these places.

In the meanwhile, János Lázár has said that critique to the border law 
is unfound and says that Hungarian government is the example of 
“solidarity”. He also says that the Hungarian border guarding is going 
well and other countries should follow the example. Also recently, Péter 
Gerstmár from the green party, Politics Can Be Different (LMP), held a 
press conference and stated that LMP calls for setting up of an 
independent border guard unit instead of relying on the police. He 
further stated that LMP does not agree with the 8km law. He says also 
that right now there is also no chance of getting asylum in Hungary and 
that the government should follow the EU on this.

Escalating situation on the transit zone

On 3rd August, a group of people held a short flash mob demonstration in 
front of the Hungarian consulate in Subotica and demanded the border to 
open. The conditions in the zone clearly indicate they had valid reasons 
to protest. This follows a march from Belgrade to the border, where 
people seeking protection also staged a hunger strike and demanded 
Hungary respect their right to seek asylum. We recommend everyone to 
follow the updates from Moving Europe, Migszol Szeged and the Hungarian 
Helsinki Committee to see regular updates from the border area.

On 7th July, in a tragic accident, a 10 year old Afghan boy, whose 
family was awaiting admission outside the Hungarian “transit zone” in 
Horgos drowned when bathing in a nearby pond. His family is being 
supported by civil groups in Serbia.

The daily life of people waiting to be accepted in the transit zone is 
precarious as all basic services are provided by volunteers and 
humanitarian organizations whose work is regulated by the plans and 
whims of the Hungarian state. Some months ago the Hungarian government 
announced that five main charity organizations, including Red Cross and 
Caritas, will take up the work of taking care of the people in the 
waiting area. As they slowly started their work now, it seems they 
cannot, or are not allowed to, do much. For instance, one big issue in 
the waiting zone is the lack of basic means for hygiene and access to a 
sufficient number of mobile toilets. Recently, Gábor Iványi , the head 
of the Hungarian Evangelical Fellowship tried to bring mobile toilets to 
the hundreds of people waiting at the border. However, his request got 
an absurd response from the Minister of Interior Sándor Pintér, who said 
that providing mobile toilets in the area would encourage the formation 
of a permanent camp at the border. There is little we want to comment on 
the absurdity of mister Pinter’s thought according to which people would 
stop fleeing horrendous conditions of violence and try to find a better 
place to live because of his cunning idea to deny their access to proper 
hygiene. Also worrying are the reports from civic organizations, 
including Migszol Szeged, which are usually providing food at the border 
and who have been denied access to people in the last few days.
​
Despite the lack of international media attention, The Balkan route has 
not been “closed.” People will continue coming and waiting for a 
solution to their basic demands for legal and political recognition, in 
a colony of tents that the Hungarian state has wilfully created by 
pushing back those who attempt to cross Hungary.

In a recent visit to the Röszke transit zone, Lajos Kósa, the president 
of the National Assembly Defence and Law Enforcement Committee has said 
that everything functions well. To counter this claim, we recommend 
everyone to take a look at these photos to show a militarized small 
enclosure in which people’s asylum demands are initiated, surrounded by 
barbed wire. In a recent meeting there with the National Defence and Law 
Enforcement Committee of the parliament the official representatives 
stated that 95% of the migrants are not cooperative, that they lie and 
use fake personal data and then they just disappear from the open camps. 
We, personally, are not surprised that people leave from the open camps, 
when they have poor translation, very little information available, 
terrible living conditions, and most of all, when they have been 
“welcomed” to Hungary by denying entry, and often times by detention. We 
find it shameful that most single men are refused entry as an informal 
rule, sometimes leading to forceful separation of families, as adult 
males are detained or pushed back to Serbia. This and many other cases 
of violation of legal and political right of asylum seekers should put 
the light on the lack of cooperation and honesty of the Hungarian state, 
and the silent approval by the European Union.

Continuous protests in the detention centers and emptying camps

Detention

Presently, as reported by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, there are 
more people jailed in the detention centers than being housed in the 
open camps. The open camps are relatively unused because people are 
stuck on the Serbian side of the fence. There have been several protests 
inside the detention centers. We stand in solidarity with all the 
detained people who are protesting - we believe that no one should be 
forced into a closed camp, in a prison regime, for their demand to be 
recognized as persons in need of legal and political protection.
The fights and suicide attempts inside the detention centers, especially 
in Kiskunhalas in Southern Hungary, are extremely worrying and clear 
signs of frustration among people who have been locked up for exercising 
what is their right under international law: seeking asylum. Fights, and 
group fights, between people, sometimes in groups, who are detained 
usually take place for access to internet or the television, telling of 
how extremely excruciating it is to be locked up with no access to 
information about the asylum system in Hungary, nor books to read, or 
languages to study, or television to watch, or way of contacting one's 
family. In the end of July, some detainees from Kiskunhalas managed to 
escape the facility.

The Hungarian police routinely uploads reports and even pictures of the 
aftermath of fights, which further serves the purpose of the government 
of portraying detained people as violent and threatening. For details on 
the conditions in detention, please see our earlier detailed report 
during a previous protest in Kiskunhalas earlier this summer.

Bicske

The Hungarian Immigration Office (OIN) has officially stated that the 
largest open refugee camp in Hungary, Bicske, will be closed by 31 
December 2016. Bicske is one of the few open camps placed in a short 
distance from Budapest, permitting people there to travel occasionally 
to Budapest and inform themselves better about the opportunities they 
might have to find a place to live and work after being given legal 
protection in Hungary. The conditions in the Bicske camp are oftentimes 
terrible, especially when the facility receives more people than it can 
actually host, and we have been systematically reporting about the lack 
of sufficient or decent meals there in the last few years. That said, 
the Hungarian Helsinki Committee provides regular quality legal aid to 
people staying in the camp, and of all open camps in Hungary, the 
conditions in Bicske are arguably the best. The closing of the camp 
risks making even more insecure the situation of those applying for 
asylum and forced to wait for a decision in places more isolated from 
the main cities. The recently opened camps in former military facilities 
indicate an even harsher prospect for those who decided to hope for 
legal-political recognition in Hungary, not to mention very few 
opportunities to meet Hungarians.

Körmend

​The conditions of living in the Körmend camp, in Western Hungary, have 
been revealed by a politician of the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP), 
who took these photos from inside the Körmend camp. Officially, no 
media is allowed to enter there and no photos are permitted, but as 
these have been leaked to independent Hungarian media we share them. 
Presently, the people in the camp are housed in military tents under 
the scorching sun, and in order to meet the case officers for their 
asylum claims, they sometimes need to travel all the way to Debrecen in 
eastern Hungary, a distance of more than 9 hours by public transport. 
The living conditions in Körmend are very poor: the food goes bad very 
fast and there are no refrigerators for storing anything, and without 
proper care from the camp authorities, the MP reports, the overcrowded 
tents are invaded by ants. In addition, the camp is absolutely not 
prepared for the summer storms of July and August, with chaotic 
conditions of mud. The Körmend camp is there temporarily, as the 
authorities are increasingly stressing. The government’s strategy is to 
eliminate all the facilities that are supposed to house asylum seekers 
while applying for state protection.
Picture
Living conditions in the Körmend camp, photo by Ágnes Kunhalmi published 
originally on abcug.hu
Police has stopped investigating the case in Körmend where people living 
in the camp were suspected of having broken a window of a sports hall “ 
to look at some girls”, that at the time caused a moral panic that even 
János Lázár and Viktor Orbán were commenting on. The police found that 
there was nothing illegal that happened and the whole thing was only 
rumors the whole time.

Politics of government propaganda and conspiracy theories

Culture of fear

Despite severe crises in housing, education, healthcare, and emigration 
of Hungarian youth, migration and security continue to be the number one 
topics of the vast network of the Hungarian state-influenced media. The 
main strategy of the government communications is threefold: instigation 
of fear, spreading propaganda for the pseudo-democratic referendum, and 
relying on cryptic conspiracy theories.
​
Images of war, and aggressive migrants, are a basic element government 
“experts” rely upon - indeed, in early August, an “expert” on the state 
TV even in the national news stated that the migration might result in 
“war conflict”. You may watch the daily English language fear-mongering 
state TV news, under the title of “Hungary reports,” in here. György 
Bakondi, the Chief Security Advisor to the government, and Péter 
Szijjártó the Foreign Minister are the most frequent commentators. 
Bakondi, especially, portrays migration with the images of war, claiming 
on the national TV that Europe is constantly under pressure from 
migrants both in the Balkans and from Italy. He claims that “illegal 
immigrants” want to get to Western Europe, even violently. For another 
English-language sample of the government’s propaganda rhetoric, please 
see this official news piece on the page of the Hungarian government. 
Other politicians follow the same rhetoric, and portray Hungary as the 
savior of Europe: in a widely circulated interview to a German 
newspaper, the Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, blames the European 
Commission for “destroying Europe.” He calls on member states “to take 
back their power” and says that Hungary has “saved the European way of 
life”.

This talk of war is also what the government is using to justify the 
pseudo-democratic referendum of October 2016. We would like to point out 
that while the debate on the referendum is of top priority, it is also 
turning away attention on the unfolding legal and humanitarian fiasco on 
the Hungarian-Serbian border and creating an illusion that the Hungarian 
asylum policy is successful. Indeed, some weeks ago in the weekly 
government briefing, János Lázár was as delusional as to state that the 
“migration crisis” was not stopped by the EU-Turkey deal, but instead by 
the fence that Hungary built on the Serbian border. The latest addition 
to this culture of fear are the statements of the Minister for Health 
Care, who claimed that migration poses “a serious public health 
challenge” and claims that healthcare is provided by the state in the 
transit zone.

Referendum and propaganda

In addition to this language of threat and war, the government has 
started a new chapter on official state propaganda financed by the 
Hungarian taxpayers. The newest billboard campaign relates to the 
upcoming referendum. We find the slogans of the government distasteful - 
especially this one that shamelessly, uses the victims of terrorist 
attacks in Europe to the propaganda purpose of the Hungarian government 
with no respect to the grieving families of those who died: “Did you 
know? Since the start of the migration crisis more than 300 people in 
Europe have died of terrorist attacks.

The Hungarian referendum about the EU migrant relocation system will 
take place on October 2nd. The government is commenting on the topic on 
daily basis and utilizing its a propaganda machine with the 
abovementioned billboards to advertise their point of view. Migszol has 
elaborated here why the referendum is not a valid democratic tool in 
this context, why it instrumentalizes the topic of migration in order to 
avoid discussion about real social issues, and why the quota system as 
such is not a good solution in helping people on the move. Many 
political parties hurried to condemn the referendum and have various 
reactions from supporting boycotting to participating. They can be read 
in brief from here.

Conspiracy theories

Finally, we would like to share the state of conspiracy theories of the 
government - we also recommend this recent piece on the topic from 
Hungarian Spectrum. In a recent speech, Viktor Orbán was blaming the 
migration crisis on the U.S., along with a cryptic allegation that “in 
this story, we are the Indians” (see his Facebook post on this remark in 
Hungarian and English in here.)

In addition, the government and the state-media continues to blame 
George Soros and the Open Society Foundations for destroying Europe by 
“bringing in muslims.” This theory was sparked by the aforementioned 
Mayor in Ásotthalom, László Toroczkai, who published a post making 
connections between the Welcome to Europe-activist network and George 
Soros. We are sad to report that Toroczkai and other politicians, like 
Bence Rétvári from the Human Resources Ministry, might need a 
translator, as they really seem to have misread the information on the 
information leaflets provided to people in Serbia by several groups. 
When children seeking asylum without their families have been advised to 
inform the authorities that they are under 18 and traveling alone, the 
government propaganda machine seems to have translated this into a 
conspiracy theory according to which transnational activists, supported 
by George Soros, are encouraging all people seeking asylum to pretend to 
be 18 years old.