Human rights activists threaten suit against Hungary

(Vatican Radio) Human rights activists have vowed to sue Hungary at the European Union's top court after the government announced that it will hold asylum seekers in border camps made up of shipping containers while their asylum requests are settled. The container plan is part of a Hungary's tough anti-immigration policy that has raised concerns within the EU and advocacy organizations.

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee, one of the country's leading rights groups, says it will sue Hungary at the European Court of Justice in every case where asylum-seekers in its words illegally kept in custody. That would likely force the Hungarian government to make compensation payments.

In its words the government would do better instead to improve the quality of the open reception centers and spend this money on the integration of people who have found asylum in Hungary.

The announcement came shortly after János Lázár, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's chief of staff, confirmed that the government wants to place migrants fleeing war and poverty in shipping containers. "That location would be at the border. We will set up containers for habitation along the country's borders that could accommodate 200 to 300 people and where the migrants wait until their cases have been decided on," he told reporters. 

MIGRANTS DETAINED

He added that any migrants detained anywhere in Hungary without documents allowing them to be in the country will be returned across the border. Hungary is also is also building four small military bases along the border fence to provide accommodations for some of the 3,000 soldiers on border duty along with police and what are called border hunters.

Human rights activists say Hungary is already holding large numbers of asylum-seekers in closed camps and that the massive, indiscriminate detention of all asylum-seekers in their words "has not been seen in decades in democratic Europe.”

Currently, many asylum-seekers whose claims are under appeal are still placed in mostly in open camps and some leave for Western Europe before their cases are decided.

Migrants detained within 8 kilometers (5 miles) of the border are sent back across the fences Hungary has built on its southern borders with Serbia and Croatia. The government has also warned that Hungary was ready to build a second, stronger fence if needed, on its southern borders.

It is difficult to get asylum in Hungary. The country granted asylum or some form of protection to 425 people in 2016, while receiving 29,432 applications.

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