Woman in Hungarian prison with severe allergies given bread and lard to eat, loses 13 kgs

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee has taken on the case of a woman with severe allergies who has been in prison for 22 months. Over the course of her incarceration, she lost considerable weight, going down from 56 to 43 kilos. Despite her deteriorating condition and having repeated allergy attacks due to inadequate care, she remained behind bars. Now, the Hungarian state will pay her EUR 5,200 in reparations.

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee has made progress in a case representing a 53-year-old woman who has been detained since 20 January 2020 for crimes against property. The Committee alleges that although the woman is in a potentially life-threatening situation in prison, she has not been provided with adequate care. Strasbourg declared the state has to pay her EUR 5,200 for the violation of her rights.

Woman suffers from severe allergies but neither the prison nor her relatives can provide adequate care for her

Corroborating the Committee’s claims is a report from a doctor who works in one of the prisons where she was held, which stated that “[t]he institution cannot ensure the complete exclusion of certain allergens. Given her medical history, this could lead to a serious, even life-threatening condition.”

The woman suffers from severe allergies. She is sensitive to various cosmetics, preservatives, and certain foods (e.g. milk, bran, soya), but also to many cleaning products, dust, dog hair, and plant pollens. Moreover, as the Helsinki Observer blog reported back in 2022, she also developed new allergies in prison, so she now cannot have eggs.

Her condition is so acute that if she comes into contact with these substances, for example, if they get into her food, she may suffer a potentially life-threatening attack, known as anaphylactic shock.

This, as the Committee highlights, has happened four times during her incarceration: she had to be taken to an outside hospital multiple times to receive life-saving treatment. Three of the cases were presumably because of food contamination, and the fourth because she received medication from a spoon that had residues on it to which she was allergic.

The woman’s relatives are also unable to send parcels to the prison to provide her with food and toiletries that she would be safe to interact with. Under current Hungarian legislation, food can only be purchased from prison canteens or from the prison’s webshop. However, almost all of the food available there contains preservatives that are dangerous to the woman’s health and life.

Her meals are thus lacking, and possibly dangerous. The Helsinki Committee reports, for example, that there were weeks when she received a total of 2 kilos of lard a week, in addition to the 0.4 kilos of daily bread she was given in the morning. To add “variety” to her meals, she was given a red onion or an apple at dinner, and smoked bacon twice a week.

The scarce meals themselves would be enough to make one lose weight, however, fearing another allergic reaction, she often simply does not eat the food if she is uncertain whether or not it would be safe for her.

As a result, the 167-centimetre-tall woman’s weight has fallen from 56 kilos to 43 kilos. “Her body mass index (BMI) is 15.42, which is below the World Health Organization (WHO) critical level of 16, meaning her extreme thinness could lead to death,” writes the Helsinki Committee. Despite her severe situation, she remained imprisoned without any meaningful investigation.

The court erred in imposing the prison sentence, argues the Helsinki Committee

“Chronic illness or severe allergy alone does not exempt you from arrest. The rule on this is correct. However, the medical condition of the individual is also a factor to be weighed when the court decides whether the arrest is absolutely necessary or whether a less severe restriction, i.e. criminal supervision, is sufficient,” said Ivóna Bieber, lawyer for the Hungarian Helsinki Committee.

According to the group, in addition to her serious illness, the state should have taken into account that the 53-year-old woman had reported her own crime, had cooperated with the police during the proceedings, had a normal family life, had no accomplices and was no longer in a position to repeat the offences, when giving its sentence.

Considering all these factors, the Committee thinks that placing her under house arrest would have been a sufficient measure at the time of sentencing, which could have prevented her health from deteriorating so.

Following this reasoning, the woman successfully appealed to the European Court of Human Rights with the help of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, which declared that her rights had been seriously violated. The court made a settlement offer to the litigants that was accepted by both the complainant and the government: the state will pay her EUR 5,200 as reparations.

At the same time, Bieber stressed that the woman, already detained as a convict, “remains in danger. Our civil rights association is working to ensure that she is provided with proper, safe care.”

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