Hungary accused of fuelling xenophobia with anti-migrant rhetoric

Europe’s top human rights watchdog has accused Hungary’s government of violating people’s rights and using anti-migrant rhetoric that fuels “xenophobic attitudes, fear and hatred”.

A damning report from the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, Dunja Mijatović, concluded: “Human rights violations in Hungary have a negative effect on the whole protection system and the rule of law” and should “be addressed as a matter of urgency”.

The commissioner, whose report is based on meeting government ministers and civil society groups during a five-day visit to Hungary in February, issued a devastating critique of the Hungarian asylum system that has resulted in “practically systemic rejection of asylum applications”. Voicing alarm at the “excessive use of violence” by police in removing foreign nationals, she criticised a policy of denying food to those refused asylum.

Related: Hungary denying food to asylum seekers, say human rights groups

Hungary’s government has been urged to lift its “crisis situation” laws. The commissioner argued emergency measures could not be justified when the government received only 671 asylum applications in 2018.

Viktor Orbán’s government declared “a crisis situation due to mass immigration” in 2015 and built a fence topped by razor wire along the country’s southern border with Serbia. That year, hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants passed through Hungary, mostly trying to reach western Europe.

Asylum seekers in Hungary now live in two transit zones along the border as part of a law that the UN said violated Hungary’s international obligations to refugees.

The human rights commissioner also raised the alarm about Hungarian laws that “stigmatise and criminalise” work by non-governmental organisations. NGOs that receive foreign grants are required to label themselves as “receiving foreign funding” on their websites, while those who work with asylum seekers risk a one-year prison sentence for providing information. Mijatović said Hungary’s laws had a continuous chilling effect on NGOs and noted that some groups faced intimidation, stigmatisation and smear campaigns.

Another section of the report accused the government of backsliding on gender equality, via a new family protection action plan that focuses on women as childbearers.

Mijatović’s report is published amid stalemate in Brussels over an EU procedure to sanction Hungary for violations of the rule of law. Since the European parliament triggered the bloc’s rule of law mechanism last autumn, the process has languished in the EU council of ministers.

In an 18-page rebuttal of Mijatović’s findings, the ministry of foreign affairs said Hungary fulfilled “all of its international obligations that deal with the safeguarding of human rights of asylum seekers and refugees”. It said maintaining a crisis situation was absolutely justified because of the “proximity of immigrants” in the Balkans. Police behaved in a lawful, professional and justified way, the ministry said.

It also said the government was committed to easing “the multiple burden” on women and rejected criticism of its treatment of NGOs, saying that a recent UN report had made unsubstantiated claims.