Helsinki File: Migrant push-backs

2025 report on pushbacks in Europe

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC), together with the Support Network for Detainees and Their Families (FECSKE), has contributed to the call for input by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or … Read more

In a landmark judgment, the European Court of Human Rights has mandated the Hungarian government to pay just satisfaction to three asylum seekers represented by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee after determining their expulsion from Hungary … Read more

Hungarian police forced a family of six asylum seekers into Serbia unlawfully. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Hungarian state had violated the prohibition of collective expulsion. The Hungarian Helsinki Committee represented … Read more

Today the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that Hungary is to pay a lump sum of 200 million euros for failure to implement an earlier judgement of the Court. The Government is also to pay a penalty payment of 1 million euros per day for each day it fails to put an end to the often violent pushback of migrants.

Another client of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee has won a case in Strasbourg. Hungarian police pushed an Iraqi Kurdish boy to Serbia without any investigation. The inhumane Hungarian regulations made this possible – which are in effect even today, despite several international and EU court rulings declaring them to be a severe violation of fundamental rights. The Hungarian state treats children in need of asylum this way.

In a shocking report, The Guardian revealed that Hungarian authorities pushed out even severely injured asylum seekers to Serbia. We have been drawing attention to this issue for a long time and continue to provide legal assistance to … Read more

Hungarian authorities forcibly transferred a Yemeni family of seven and an Afghan three-member family to Serbia in 2019. They all applied for asylum at Budapest Airport but were pushed out via the border fence. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg ruled today that the Hungarian state violated the prohibition of collective expulsions and inhuman or degrading treatment. The Hungarian Helsinki Committee represented the asylum seekers, including a child with Down’s syndrome, in the case.

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee received a request to provide information to the Hungarian member of the FRANET research network of the EU’s Fundamental Right Agency on investigations of fundamental rights violations and criminal offences at … Read more

A 14-year-old asylum-seeking child was assaulted by field guards in Ásotthalom and thrown back to Serbia by Hungarian police. A 17-year-old asylum seeker was arbitrarily detained for three months. A 28-year-old torture victim asylum seeker was detained despite severe health problems. All three of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee’s clients appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, and all won. The Hungarian state violated their human rights and is obliged to pay just reparation.

Hungarian authorities are responsible for the death of a young Syrian man who drowned in the river Tisza at the Serbian-Hungarian border after police assaulted and pushed him back in 2016, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled today.

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee reached a milestone in our litigation struggle against Hungary’s indiscriminate and violent push-back policy applied at the Serbian-Hungarian border. In September 2022, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that it violates the prohibition of collective expulsions and the right to remedy. This is our second victory in Strasbourg concerning this unlawful practice, and it gives us hope for several similar pending cases – and reaching systemic change in this unfair policy.

In 2017, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Croatia illegally expelled an Afghan family seeking asylum with their many children. The victim on whom the judgment in the case was based was a six-year-old girl, Madina, who had died. Her tragic death is a disturbing example of a ruthless migration policy similar to the practice in Hungary. The Hungarian Helsinki Committee intervened in the Strasbourg proceedings in order to promote the cause of asylum-seeking victims.

Following the Polish model, the Government wanted to use the Constitutional Court as a means of evading a Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) judgment that it did not like. However, in its … Read more

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled last December that the indiscriminate push-back of asylum-seekers to Serbia was in breach of EU law. However, the Government did not abandon the illegal practice, but instead responded with another violation: following the Polish model, it intends to use the Hungarian Constitutional Court as a means of evading the enforcement of a binding CJEU judgment.

As part of the Protecting Rights at Borders initiative funded by the European Programme for Integration and Migration (EPIM), the second quarterly report on unlawful push-backs carried out by authorities in Greece, North Macedonia, Serbia, … Read more

Our client wanting to seek asylum was pushed back to Serbia without any examination of his individual circumstances. 72 000 such cases occurred in the course of 5 years. The Pakistani man’s case was no … Read more

In December 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that the domestic legalisation of push-backs violates EU law. In the seven months since the ruling, the Orbán Government has not changed … Read more

As part of the Protecting Rights at Borders initiative funded by the European Programme for Integration and Migration (EPIM), the first quarterly report on unlawful push-backs carried out by authorities in Greece, North Macedonia, Serbia, … Read more

Our intervention at the European Parliament’s LIBE Committee Working Group on Frontex Scrutiny on push-backs and the Agency’s human rights record in Hungary.