Category: Our cases

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 2013, Dávid Vig, a Hungarian citizen, was subject to a police ID check and a search of his outer clothing during a cultural festival held at a community centre in Budapest. Nothing incriminating was … Read more

Another judgment has been delivered by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg due to unlawful detentions in the transit zone. The asylum seeking family from Iraq, four children and their parents were arbitrarily held by the Hungarian authorities for 136 days. The family was represented by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee.

Another judgment has been delivered by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg against Hungary due to unlawful detention of an asylum seeking family in the transit zone. Four Iraqi children and their parents were held by the Hungarian authorities for nearly five months. What is more, the mother was pregnant with their fifth child during their detention in the container camp at Tompa, Hungary. And yet, Hungarian authorities couldn’t care less. The family has been represented by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee.

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee released its documentary film By the Power of the Force on its YouTube channel. The subject of the film is the largely unpunished mass police violence of 2006 and its aftermath. The film by civil rights activists shows that the domestic judiciary still fails to prevent, detect and punish police violence to this day.

A special criminal trial has begun in the Pest Central District Court. The accused man, now 35 years old, was sexually molested by his priest several times since the age of 13. This counts as a crime, and amounts to sexual violence against a child. Yet the Catholic priest remained unpunished under secular criminal law. Meanwhile, Attila Pető, the former victim, is now being threatened by criminal sanction

‘God bless Hungary! I love Hungary and Hungarians. I have been waiting for this for two years and eight months. Thank you very much for accepting me and for granting me refugee status,’ said the sincerely shaken Abouzar Soltani on 18 August in the notes on his hearing when it was announced that he and his 12-year-old son Armin had finally received protection in Hungary. What follows is the story of what the Iranian clients of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee experienced, and the face that the Hungarian State shows to the persecuted.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled this morning for the first time that push-backs carried out by Hungary under a domestic regulation are in breach of the prohibition of collective expulsions enshrined in Article … 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

Bring Human Rights Home: A Story from Hungary

On 15 April 2021, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in a final judgment that the Hungarian State violated Zsombor Csúcs’ human rights when the Prosecutor’s Office did not investigate his abuse by the … Read more

Today the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered its judgement in the case of an Iranian-Afghan family who were held in the transit zone for the entire duration of their asylum procedure in 2017 and released only upon being granted international protection.

Drawing on exchanges between the HHC, various stakeholders of Frontex and its Executive Director, our new information note shows how the Agency turned a blind eye towards well documented systemic human rights violations at Hungary’s … Read more

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee together with the European Council for Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), the Dutch Council for Refugees (DCR), the AIRE Center, and the International Commission for Jurists (ICJ) submitted a third party intervention … Read more

In its final judgment, the Metropolitan Court upheld the complaints against the police by the Labrisz Lesbian Association, Hungarian LGBT Association, Auróra Community Centre, the Marom Klub Kft. which operates Auróra, and eight individuals. The … Read more

In the early morning hours of 13 May 2020 in the town of Gyula, located in the southeast corner of Hungary, the police raided the home of Mr János Csóka-Szűcs, a local NGO activist.

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention cannot accept that an individual who either must agree to remain in the transit zone or lose the possibility of lodging an asylum application could be described as freely consenting to stay in the transit zone.

Appl. no. 46783/14

Today is World Refugee Day. Each year hundreds of thousands leave their home due to wars, hunger, torture and persecution globally. In Europe, although often perceived as a safe region, asylum-seekers are often met by … Read more

Joined cases C-924/19 PPU and C-925/19 PPU