Kiskunhalas is one of the asylum detention centers, where asylum seekers are kept imprisoned up to six months, without ever having committed a crime. The conditions of these camps are even worse than in the ‘open camps’ - with widespread abuse by guards and insufficient or no access to legal aid, healthcare, food, social workers, or translation (see our anti-detention campaign for more info). People are cut off from the outside, with ca 10 minutes of internet access per day and no mobile phones allowed. There is limited quality legal aid, but the many people report to us that they are simply not told where and when they may see a lawyer about their case. The Cordelia Foundation is present once or twice a month to offer psychological support.
People imprisoned in the closed refugee detention center of Kiskunhalas organized a protest yesterday, June 1st 2016. Today, the protest continues. They are demanding freedom to leave the prison and live in an open camp, a faster asylum procedure and better living conditions in the camp. According to Julia Ivan, a lawyer at the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, many of the protesters are people that Hungary is trying to deport to Greece with the Dublin regulation, despite the fact that the European Court of Human Rights has ruled against such deportations.
Kiskunhalas is one of the asylum detention centers, where asylum seekers are kept imprisoned up to six months, without ever having committed a crime. The conditions of these camps are even worse than in the ‘open camps’ - with widespread abuse by guards and insufficient or no access to legal aid, healthcare, food, social workers, or translation (see our anti-detention campaign for more info). People are cut off from the outside, with ca 10 minutes of internet access per day and no mobile phones allowed. There is limited quality legal aid, but the many people report to us that they are simply not told where and when they may see a lawyer about their case. The Cordelia Foundation is present once or twice a month to offer psychological support.
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To the Police Office of Bicske
To the Office of Immigration and Nationality The refugees in the Bicske Reception Centre have informed the members of the Migrant Solidarity Group that they the recent presence of the police inside Bicske camp is causing them great grievances. Every day, within the area of mere several hundred square meters of the camp the presence of 10 to 30 policemen triggers anxiety and bewilderment among them. Anxiety from the mere presence of the police as it is well known that the refugees have not accidentally left their homeland. They mostly fled from armed members of the public authorities in uniform who persecuted them because of their religion, gender, race, political opinion or because of their membership of any other social group. They feel bewilderment because no one can understand why there is a need for such a high level of police presence in a place where nobody has committed any criminal acts. “Are we now in prison?” – a refugee child asked this question the other day and her parents could not really reassure the child. The refugees, who live in the camp, have also reported that the police are not only intruding into the refugees’ living space, but they are also present in quite a threatening manner when the refugees share their most personal problems: for instance, in the doctor’s room during examinations or in the social worker’s office when the refugees try to inquire about work and housing opportunities. It is not difficult to see that the presence of the policemen destroys the trust between the refugees and their helpers in these situations, which are based on confidentiality. According to the refugees, one example for this is when some social workers or nurses threaten them with calling the police if the perplexed refugees would not leave their office. It is not difficult to see that the presence of the policemen goes against the norms of both medical and social worker ethics. Police presence during the medical examination violates the principles of medical ethics at several points. One of the cornerstones of medical ethics is the principles of the respect for the individual that includes humanism, the respect for human rights and dignity, and also the highest level of protection of personal integrity. In addition, the police presence also violates the Hippocratic Oath, the teaching that has been in force for centuries, and the Article 2 (1), 10 (1) and 25 of the Healthcare Law of 1997. Police presence during the consultation with the social worker violates Article 8, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 26 of the Code of Ethics for Social Work. The refugees of the Bicske camp have also reported that their ID cards are checked by the policemen in the camp while they are just sitting and talking to each other. Some refugees have also reported that in one case, a police officer used such a harsh coercive measure against a refugee that the refugee’s arm got broken during this intervention (this man can be seen in this video made by Átlátszó at 14:20). It is totally unacceptable that the refugees are threatened by police presence and rough handling after all that they have gone through. These people suffered from persecution in their homeland and from grievances during their escape, and also had to endure imprisonment or other inhumane detention after they arrived in Hungary. Presumably the Office of Immigration and Nationality (OIN) is trying to prevent tensions with the presence of the police in the camp. The tensions that the office itself created by putting people, who arrived in Hungary from the world’s most hard-hit countries, into crowded, mass centers. The traumas that accumulated in the refugees will evidently end up clashing in a camp where hundreds of people live and where, apart from the daily 1-2 hour program the refugees have to live a demoted existence. The OIN’s response so far is that the refugees, most of whom have suffered from traumas, are being watched carefully by the police. However, the Hungarian government could produce a different response. In the short run, the police, who are paid by the taxpayers, should be sent to places where they do no harm or do not waste time, but where their presence is useful. In the short term the OIN should organize continuous programs that would help to relieve the tensions among the traumatised people living in these crowded places and also would give a new impetus to these people who are tired of life. As a solution, we also recommend the employment of a sufficient number of properly trained professionals (social workers, doctors, nurses, administrators, etc.), whose presence and expertise would help to reduce the tensions because of which the OIN would consider the police presence necessary. In the long term, however, it would be essential to close all these mass centers that are totally unsuitable for the integration of the recognised refugees into Hungarian society and to provide housing for them that does not separate the refugees from, but places them among the local population. We demand that the employees of the OIN should call the police only in specific cases, when there is an imminent criminal threat, and they should not hinder further the integration of the refugees, who are already in very disadvantageous starting position, into the Hungarian society! Budapest, 30, November 2013 Migrant Solidarity Group Six refugees from the Bicske Refugee center have moved to a homeless shelter two weeks ago (A research visit to a homeless shelter in Budapest). Migráns Szolidaritás Csoport (Migrant Solidarity Group of Hungary) does not believe this is a good solution for refugee housing problems: These shelters are far away from the Budapest city centre, it costs the refugees 1400 Ft (4.80€) to travel to the city, and they have no possibility to integrate to Hungarian society.
We strongly disagree with transferring refugees to homeless shelters on two basis: Firstly, the government’s obligation to solve housing issues is part of an integration plan and assisting refugees into society. By sending refugees into homeless shelters there will be no positive opportunity for integration. Secondly, the homeless shelters are already nearly meeting their capacity according to a recent statement by an activist group struggling with housing issues in Budapest, A Város Mindenkie. This means it is impossible for the existing shelter system to also house thousands of refugees and asylum seekers – many of whom have left Hungary and are now in danger of being deported back to Hungary under the Dublin rules. Migráns Szolidaritás Csoport urges the immigration office (OIN) to find a permanent solution to this problem because refugees who are given permission to stay in this country should not be placed into homeless shelters. Migráns Szolidaritás Csoport is additionally concerned that by placing the refugee families in homeless shelters Hungary will be violating the rights of children. A shelter is not a place for children who must prepare themselves for school and certainly cannot be a place to study do homework after school. This is a terrible ‘solution’ by the Immigration office (OIN), another solution must be found. Migráns Szolidaritás (Migrant Solidarity Group), whose members are refugees, migrants and Hungarians - will be demonstrating on 2nd of June at 15.30 front of the Hungarian Ministry of Interior. On the 3rd of June the Parliament is planning to accept the legislation which will violate the human rights of the asylum seekers and refugees. With this move they believe they will fix the failure of the present system. The aim of the protest is to raise awareness among the parliamentarians and to point out that the Parliament should not punish the asylum seekers by detaining them, cannot violate their legal rights and should not make the integration of these people's life (who have been recognised as refugees by the Hungarian Government) even more difficult. Instead of brutal detention centers and over crowded "pre-integration" centers the asylum seekers and refugees should receive proper social and legal help and provide them with social housing, easier access to the labour market and proper health care.
Currently there are over a hundred refugees (single people and families) whose official time in the camp has ended. These refugees protested in front of the Parliament in November 2012, and also in February 2013 in front of the European Union Delegation in Hungary (EU Ház) to call the attention of the responsible authorities, primarily the Immigration and Nationality Office (OIN), and the Ministry of Interior to the danger of homelessness that awaits them after their time in the Bicske Refugee Camp. All refugees residing in the Bicske refugee camp have wanted, and still want, to leave the camp voluntarily. However, due to the limitations of the laws originally designed to help refugees to find housing and also due to the incompetence of the authorities, these refugees of Hungary, who have been suffering from multiple disadvantages, have not been able to leave and start an independent life. After these protests, the representatives of OIN offered accommodation at homeless shelters to the refugees. However, after the refugees did not accept these offers, the authorities threatened that the police would forcibly evict them from the camp, and the children would be taken away from their refugee parents by the Hungarian state authorities. The Migrant Solidarity Group has requested the help of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in order to prevent the forcing of the refugees into homelessness and the tearing apart of the families. With the contribution of the UNHCR, the authorities let the refugees stay in the camp. However, their money allowances and their medical help was taken away from them. As a result of the OIN’s incompetence the refugees have not been able to leave the camp without adequate housing solutions, even while more and more refugees have been transferred intto the Bicske camp. Furthermore, not only refugees (with state recognised status), but also asylum-seekers have been recently transferred to Bicske camp – instead of the Debrecen camp where asylum seekers have previously placed. The situation today is now chaotic: total confusion reigns, asylum-seekers are sleeping in the Bicske camp sport hall, dozens of people must share a single kitchen and a bathroom. Some of the rules which regulate the reception conditions of refugees are no longer valid and the new camp rules are difficult to follow, even by the state workers of the camp. Hungarian parliamentarians intend to ‘repair’ this chaos with the following inhumane laws:
Therefore, the members of the Migrant Solidarity Group would like to invite all to join us in front of the Ministry of Interior on the 2nd of June, 2013 at 3:30 pm to express their opposition to the inhumane laws that violate human rights and to express that, unlike the government, there are people in Hungary who are happy to accept refugees because we want to create a livable society together with them. Contact: Migráns Szolidaritás Csoport (Migrant Solidarity Group) [email protected] Internet: http://www.migszol.com https://www.facebook.com/migszolcsoport The atmosphere in Bicske right now is quiet but tense. On April 2nd, 2013, the 92 refugees and people under subsidiary protection - among them many families with children - were not evicted by force by the Office of Immigration and Nationality (OIN). Instead, there is another strategy in place. The people in the camp are not receiving any benefits, no healthcare, no food, but most importantly, no information of what are the plans of OIN with regards to them. Moreover, the families are being threatened that the state will take away the children, because the families cannot independently take care of them. The 92 people are being completely overlooked, while the more than 70 newly arrived refugees from the camp in Debrecen are being told to avoid contact with the aforementioned 92.
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AuthorThis blog is ran by members of Migszol, it features our analyses and reflections on asylum questions in Hungary in more depth. If you would like to write a guest piece, drop us a line! Archives
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