Amnesty calls on the Hungarian government to provide a case-by-case assessment of asylum applications, recourse to appeal decisions and protection against abuses, Tódor Gárdos, AI’s campaign manager for the Balkans, told a press conference. Further, the government should only order detention as a last resort and it should comply with rules on “proportionate detention”.

“These people are forced to embark on their journey, and what attracts them to Hungary is that their asylum requests are processed faster here and they are also more likely to get protection than in Serbia or Macedonia,” Gárdos said. Márta Pardavi, co-head of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, another human rights organisation, said asylum laws adopted in Hungary on Monday mean that after mid- August asylum requests will be automatically rejected and applicants returned to Serbia.

It is clear from first-person accounts that Serbia, Macedonia and Greece cannot be considered safe countries as their refugee service provision is less than adequate, Pardavi said.

Under Hungary’s new “short and bureaucratic” system, refugees will only have three days to launch an appeal and courts must provide a ruling within eight days, she said. Asylum-seekers are unlikely to “get a hearing”, she added.

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