“People who cross into Hungary without permission, including women and children, have been viciously beaten and forced back across the border”, she said.
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Since July 5, migrants caught within 8 kilometers (5 miles) of the Hungarian border are being returned to the Serbian side of the razor-wire fence built by Hungary a year ago to stem the migrant flow.
Vucic said most of the migrants enter Serbia from Bulgaria.
Others interviewed by HRW said they were beaten by police and injured when forced back into Serbia through small openings in the razor-wire fence. Mr. Spindler further noted that several hundred people were sheltered by the Government of Serbia in the Refugee Aid Point near Subotica but the capacity there was overstretched. “They deliberately gave us bad injuries”.
Janos Lazar, minister in charge of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s office, denied on Thursday that Hungarian police or soldiers had mistreated asylum seekers and described their performance as “outstanding”.
The United Nations refugee agency today expressed deep concern about a new restrictive law at the Hungarian-Serbian border, and urged Hungarian authorities to investigate reports of abuse and violence in transit zones and bitten by unleashed police dogs.
Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said Saturday that “Serbia can not be a parking ground for people from Afghanistan or Pakistan whom no one else in Europe wishes to accept”. “This is the latest in a series in what we see as a deterioration of the protection of refugees and asylum seekers in Hungary”.
“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”.
“Hungary is breaking all the rules for asylum seekers”, Ms Gall added. HRW “is misconstruing the rules relating to the asylum proceedings out of obvious ignorance of the situation”, it said.
Only eight complaints have been filed during 2016 so far, and investigators have established that the cases were unfounded, said the statement by Hungary’s interior ministry.
To rule out the possibility of partiality, the reviews were forwarded to prosecutors.
Hungary has also restricted the number of people it allows each day into the transit zones where asylum claims can be submitted.
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This makes it possible for Hungary to ensure that refugees, whose asylum claims are rejected in the transit zones, do not try to stay in Hungary or pass through the country, as almost 400,000 people did previous year, on their way to Western Europe.
