US State Department report about Hungary
Washington, DC, April 14 (MTI) – The US Department of State defined the way migrants and asylum seekers are handled among the gravest human rights problems in Hungary in 2015 in its country report published on Thursday.
The report pointed to xenophobic rhetoric and a lack of humanitarian aid, and noted Hungarian legislation passed last year that made illegal crossing a criminal offence punishable with imprisonment and expulsion.
The report cited the UN high commissioner for human rights as characterising the new legislation as “incompatible with the human rights commitments binding on Hungary.”
“This is an entirely unacceptable infringement of the human rights of refugees and migrants. Seeking asylum is not a crime, and neither is entering a country irregularly,” the report quoted the commissioner as saying in September.
As a further problem, the report mentioned a lack of public consultations or negotiations with the opposition when making comprehensive legal changes. It noted international criticism over ” the systematic erosion of the rule of law, checks and balances, democratic institutions, and transparency.”
The report also noted the overcroweded state of prisons in Hungary, physical abuse of prisoners and detainees, lengthy pre-trial detention, detention of migrants and asylum seekers, governmental corruption, media concentration and restricted editorial independence, as well as government pressure and intimidation of civil society.
The document said that further problems were related to domestic violence, sexual harassment of women, anti-Semitism, abuse and inhuman treatment of persons with mental disabilities, social exclusion and discrimination against the Roma as well as verbal abuse and harassment of LGBTI people.
Read here the Hungarian government’s reaction:
HUNGARIAN GOVERNMENT: FREEDOM HOUSE REPORT “NONSENSE”
Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters
Hungary does the right thing protecting own borders. Islam will never melt into Western culture, Arabs doesn’t want to assimilate. It would be just fair towards everygody to send refugees to Arab countries in Middle East and Africa. Why have they come to one of the smalles country in Europe. Beside that, we in Easterne Europe had 50+ years communism, and until late 1800s the Turks, we were occupied back and forth, we shed blood from all our pores. Let’s put that to STOP. Send mulsim so mulsim countries. How about Arab Emirates? Are rich enough.. Maybe on Palms Island?
Our State Dept. and other ( if you can call them leaders ) i can’t.
Have no damn right to criticize other countries policies when they are not even capable of running this country with any intelligence.
If they were, we wouldn’t be so very close to collapse in this country, with so many problems that there would not be enough space on the internet to list them.
Edward Vaughan.
The news media often recited the same problems in the US as the State Department memo criticized Hungary e.g over crowded jails, physical abuse, long pretrial detention, etc.. Unfortunately, these problems are wold wide. I do not believe that Mr. Kerry, Secretary of State, ever saw this article. Mr. Kerry is much too knowledgeable to waste his time on nonsense. I think this was written by a junior employee without any understanding of European problems. I also believe the writer of the article cannot even find Hungary on the map. The article in not worth the paper it it written on and should be totally ignored.
Ok, as long as the author is talking ‘checks and balances’, let’s see. US bombs Libya, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan. The US complains, Europe isn’t paying and doing it’s fair share. It complains about Russia interfering with the overstretched US bombing campaigns in Syria. Tonnes of Migrants from all over the world head to Europe because Mama or Mad Merkel rings her dinner bell. Suddenly a tiny country that is trying by populous to maintain it’s rightful culture and heritage is at threat by a bully media that likes to do mixed up mad reporting to stir the trouble even more. OK, mr. checks’n balances’, if Canada your neighbour to the north is willing to take in 20,000 of these ‘people’ you bombed with a smaller population of about 35 million.
The you the US with a population of 350 million should be taking in 200,000 of these people humanitarily. Why are you refusing to take from the POT you smashed.
No more comment necessary, publish this!
The USA created the problem. It has zero right to criticize how any other country reacts to this problem. The USA is built of immigrant power and should take ALL the migrants . since Americans have enormously liberal values, are masters of political correctness, have no problem with any group’s religious beliefs in theory, the USA becomes the perfect host nation. If all the migrants and refugees become reestablished into USA, possibly the various terrorist organizations will no longer target USA.
I believe the above bloggers are over-reacting to a work of a junior employee. In this case, the only blame that could be attached to someone in government service is a that a dodo bird was hired. The US Government had nothing to do with the article, they are blameless.
Pardon my english but the US state department is full of sh.t. ! They would be better off to clean their own house before deflecting critisism to other countries.
@mmburka,
To say “the US Government … are blameless”, means your just either another troll or an idiot who has had their head in sand all this time. They are the total reason why the problem in the middle east has erupted. Wake up and pick up the phone and call your brothers, phone rates are cheap these days and many people want to talk to people just like you.