Council of Europe: troubling findings on Hungarian prisons

According to the latest report by the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), Hungarian prisons are still overcrowded, with most inmates “having no or limited access to work, education or other out-of-cell activities.”

CPT delegation

Based on its visit to Hungarian detention facilities in May this year, the CPT said that “material conditions in police detention facilities were adequate for short periods of police custody (of up to 72 hours). However, according to the relevant legislation, persons remanded in custody may still be held in such facilities for longer periods, up to 60 days. Although it would appear that this rarely happens in practice, the conditions of detention in police holding facilities remain unsuitable for extended stays.”

The report singled out the prison in Tiszalök, in the north-east, where it said “physical ill-treatment by staff, such as slaps, punches, kicks, and truncheon blows to the head and body” appeared “particularly problematic.”

“The alleged ill-treatment took place in areas not covered by CCTV cameras, notably in the storage room on the disciplinary/security block, in the medical consultation room, in communal showers and in cells,” the report added.

Furthermore, the report said that “not only do the findings of the visit suggest that staff did not always intervene promptly, but the delegation also heard credible allegations that certain prisoners were allowed or even instructed by staff to mistreat their cellmates.”

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Hungarian prisons: the impact of the guards on the inmates

Most prisoners asked did not complain about treatment by their guards, though “several credible allegations of physical ill-treatment of detained persons were received. The CPT also heard several allegations of excessively tight handcuffing, sexual harassment of female detainees by male police officers, verbal abuse, including of a racist nature, of detained persons by police officers, and of humiliating remarks in respect of transgender persons,” the report said.

The CoE delegation visited psychiatric institutions in Kistarcsa, outside Budapest, and Berettyóújfalu, in the east, and received no reports of physical violence against patients.

“Material conditions in both establishments were adequate in many respects,” the report said, adding however that “patients accommodated on closed wards had in practice virtually no access to outdoor areas, which is unacceptable.”

The delegation consulted with the Hungarian authorities regarding illegal migrants and concluded that “it is regrettable that there is still no legal procedure offering effective protection against informal forcible removals of foreign nationals (pushbacks) and refoulement, including chain refoulement.”

Read the full report here.

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