Rabat – Belgrade-based KlikAktiv Center for the Development of Social Policies has called out Hungarian police for abusing migrants and refugees trying to cross the Serbian-Hungarian border.
The Serbian NGO said on September 5 that it has received pictures from a Moroccan migrant whose hair was shaved in the form of a cross during his attempt to enter Hungary.
During a meeting with members of Klikaktiv, the Moroccan man recalled that the Hungarian police thwarted his group’s attempt to cross the Hungarian-Serbian border in August.
KlikAktiv quoted him as stressing that the Hungarian police surrounded the group and started to beat them for several minutes before taking away their belongings. The Hungarian police found a clipper in the Moroccan man’s bag and used it to humiliate him, the Serbian NGO noted.
“They turned on the machine, they grabbed me so I wouldn’t move and they made a cross all over my head. Then they started laughing at me while hitting my head,” it quoted the Moroccan migrant as saying. “When I finally got released, I just wanted to knock all the hair off my head.”
On Facebook, KlikAktiv criticized what it called “the baptism of migrants and refugees in Hungary,” stressing that “refugees are terrified and just want to pass through Hungary as soon as possible and forget about the treatment they were exposed [to] there while thinking that nothing can be done to stop the brutality of the Hungarian [police].”
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The NGO emphasized that it is in possession of thousands of statements and photographs that document the humiliation and fractures the Hungarian police have inflicted on migrants and refugees in recent months.
KlikAktiv concluded its Facebook post by urging the European Union to respect the rights and dignity of migrants. “After all these years, we are also inclined to think that this change will be very difficult to happen and that the European Union only declaratively represents human rights.”
In August, Doctors without Borders reported that migrants and refugees are subject to systematic beating, humiliation, and abuse at the Serbian-Hungarian border.
The NGO report emphasized: “Beatings with belts and batons, kicking, punching, various forms of humiliation, use of pepper spray and teargas are all reported to be common deterrence practices, prior to pushbacks and denial of assistance.”
