law establishing a guaranteed minimum service in prisons, which was to be brought
before Parliament by the end of 2016.
Report and response published in November 2016
(CPT/Inf(2016)29 and CPT/Inf(2016)30)
Report on the ad hoc visit to Hungary in October 2015 and
response of the Hungarian authorities
(treatment and conditions of detention of foreign nationals deprived of their liberty,
legal safeguards)
32. At the outset, the CPT acknowledges the particular challenges faced by the
Hungarian authorities in the context of the unprecedented influx of foreign nationals
into Hungary; however, it emphasises that the situation cannot absolve the authorities of their international human rights obligations as regards the treatment of
foreign nationals deprived of their liberty.
The majority of detained foreign nationals interviewed by the delegation stated that
they had been treated correctly by police/prison officers. That said, a considerable
number of foreign nationals claimed that they had been subjected to physical
ill-treatment by police officers at the moment of apprehension, during transfer to a
police establishment and/or during subsequent police questioning. It is of particular
concern that some of these allegations were made by foreign nationals who claimed
to be unaccompanied minors. In addition, a few allegations were received of physical
ill-treatment inflicted by police officers and/or armed guards working in immigration or asylum detention facilities. The CPT recommends that a clear message be
delivered, through a formal statement from the relevant authorities, to all police
officers and armed guards working in asylum and immigration detention facilities
that any form of ill-treatment of persons deprived of their liberty is unacceptable
and will be punished accordingly.
The CPT makes particular reference to an incident which occurred at the Nagyfa
Prison Unit on 23 October 2015 when a large number of foreign nationals staged a
protest by damaging the premises and equipment of the detention unit and by barricading themselves in two rooms. When later interviewed by the CPT’s delegation,
many of them made consistent and detailed allegations of physical ill-treatment
inflicted by the special police forces who had intervened in the prison unit and by
local police officers in police stations to which the foreign nationals concerned had
been transferred. The Committee urges the Hungarian authorities to take steps
without further delay to ensure that a thorough and independent inquiry is carried
out into these allegations.
Material conditions in the ordinary police holding facilities were on the whole adequate; however, the CPT recommends that the existing shortcomings be remedied.
Further, it describes several shortcomings and makes recommendations as regards
ad hoc detention facilities (i.e. containers and garages) created at the Detention
Facility of the Border Police in Szeged. Moreover, the CPT is seriously concerned
that mothers with young children and unaccompanied minors were held in one of
the former garages under very cramped conditions for four days prior to the visit
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