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 refusal, detention and expulsion.
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee works towards providing effective assistance to those fleeing to Hungary.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) found the detention of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee’s two asylum seeker clients unlawful in today’s judgement against Hungary. The young men, from Afghanistan and Algeria, were in asylum detention for five and two months, which was not justified for even a single day.
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.
On 23 March, the court annulled the earlier decision to withdraw Ms Gáborné Nagy’s international protection and ordered the authorities to start a new procedure. The judgement ruled that if the National Directorate-General for Aliens Policing (OIF) still wants to deprive her of her refugee status, it has to find properly founded, reasoned objections, and make them available to the person concerned so that she can express her views.
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.
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.
‘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
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
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
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered its judgment today in the joint cases concerning two asylum-seeking families held in the transit zone in Röszke, at the Hungarian-Serbian border. The applicants are … Read more
The authorities expelled an Iranian pharmacist student from Hungary as a result of a politically motivated show trial, even though she did not commit any violation of law. She is one of those Iranian students … Read more
Budapest, 23 April 2020 — The Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered his opinion in the joint cases concerning two asylum-seeking families held in one of the transit … Read more
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee made a movie about the Russian asylum-seeker, Alexei Torubarov. His eventful and touching story illustrates how unfairly refugees are demonized. The case of our client persecuted for his political views had to be brought … Read more