The ministry said that if an illegal migrant “gives the slightest implication” during questioning that they had been assaulted, the police submit the minutes of the given questioning session to the prosecutor’s office.

It said that out of the eight such cases that had been referred to the prosecutor’s office, six had already turned out to be “baseless hearsay”. As part of collaborative operations organised by European border agency Frontex, there are currently 36 guest police officers conducting border patrols in Hungary, but so far none of them have reported any incidents of human rights abuses or violence against migrants, it added.

Although Aftonbladet said it was unable to verify the validity of the personal accounts given in the article, the media reports it as fact that migrants are abused in Hungary, the ministry said.

Earlier in the day, Gábor Fodor, head of the opposition Liberal Party, called on the government to launch an investigation into the allegations made in the paper.

Referring to the reports in Aftonbladet, Fodor said that many migrants in northern Serbia had been treated with injuries suggesting that Hungary’s border police had “applied physical coercion against people attempting entry”.

He also noted that the problem had been reported earlier.

Parliament will vote on a set of amendment proposals to Hungary’s asylum regulations on Tuesday. If passed into law, the bill before parliament would prohibit asylum-seekers from leaving the transit zones set up on the border until their cases are ruled on.

The bill also proposes that authorities should be allowed to take illegal migrants back to the transit zones from any given spot of the country, regardless of where they have been apprehended.

Under Hungary’s current asylum laws, illegal entrants can only be escorted back if stopped within eight kilometres of the border.

Republished with permission of Hungary Matters, MTI’s daily newsletter.

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