GENEVA / HUNGARY MIGRANTS

Migrants awaiting deportation in Hungarian detention centers were “deliberately deprived of food by the Hungarian authorities,” the spokesperson for the United Nations Human Rights Office Ravina Shamdasani said on Friday. UNTV CH

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:01:46
• Production Date: 3 May 2019
• Asset Language: English
• Corporate Name: OFFICE OF THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS - OHCHR
• Subject Topical: HUMAN RIGHTS; MIGRANTS
• Geographic Subject: HUNGARY
• MAMS Id: 2388441
• Parent Id: 2388441
• Alternate Title: unifeed190503b

Description

STORY: GENEVA / HUNGARY MIGRANTS
TRT: 1:46
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: 03 MAY 2019 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

Shotlist

1. Exterior shot, Palais des Nations
2. Wide shot, Room III, Palais des Nations
3. Close up, Journalists typing
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Ravina Shamdasani, OHCHR:
“We are alarmed by reports that migrants in detention centres in Hungary have been deliberately deprived of food in contravention of international laws and standards. According to the existing laws in Hungary, migrants and asylum seekers without the right to stay in Hungary are immediately detained in transit zones during their asylum procedure, or until they can be returned.”
5. Close up, journalist
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Ravina Shamdasani, OHCHR:
“According to reports that we have received, since August 2018, at least 21 migrants awaiting deportation were deliberately deprived of food by the Hungarian authorities – for a period of up to five days.”
7. Wide shot, journalists
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Ravina Shamdasani, OHCHR:
“The deliberate deprivation of food is prohibited under the Mandela Rules, and violates the rights to food and to health, as well as the prohibition of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. We are asking Hungary to ensure it fulfils its human rights obligations towards those deprived of liberty, regardless of whether they are in transit zones or any other place where migrants are detained.”
9. Close up, journalist
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Ravina Shamdasani, OHCHR:
“The argument that the Hungarian authorities have made is that they can voluntarily leave these transit zones, and they can go into neighbouring Serbia. Now of course the problem with that, is that if they go to Serbia voluntarily, they will then be entering Serbia irregularly, and they will be contravening Serbian law.”
11. Wide shot, journalists
12. Wide shot, Press room
13. Close up, camera

Storyline

Migrants are being deliberately starved in detention centres in Hungary, the United Nations human rights office told journalists in Geneva on Friday, calling on Hungarian authorities to stop practices that contravene international humanitarian law.

These reports followed just hours after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had met with Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini in Budapest, seeking to form a coalition against what they called ‘illegal immigration’.

“We are alarmed by reports that migrants in detention centres in Hungary have been deliberately deprived of food in contravention of international laws and standards,” Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), told journalists.

According to reports received by the UN human rights office, she said “since August 2018, at least 21 migrants awaiting deportation were deliberately deprived of food by the Hungarian authorities – for a period of up to five days.”

Following an interim measure by the European Court of Human Rights, the Hungarian authorities had promised to end this practice, but the OHCHR noted that in the absence of a clear change in the legal framework, reports suggest the practice is continuing.

The deliberate deprivation of food “violates the rights to food and to health, as well as the prohibition of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” stressed Shamdasani, while urging Hungary “to ensure it fulfils its human rights obligations towards those deprived of liberty, regardless of whether they are in transit zones or any other place where migrants are detained.”

Reiterating the rights of all migrants to seek asylum, OHCHR noted that the actions of the Hungarian authorities run counter to Hungary’s obligations under international human rights law. This includes the fundamental human rights principle of ‘non-refoulement’, which prohibits the return of any person to a situation where they would face a real and foreseeable “risk of persecution, death, torture, and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment, or other irreparable harm.”

“The Hungarian authorities claim that migrants and asylum-seekers can voluntarily leave these transit zones, and they can go into neighbouring Serbia,” Shamdasani said. “The problem with that, is that if they go to Serbia voluntarily, they will then be entering Serbia irregularly, and they will be contravening Serbian law,” she added. Such action would put migrants in breach of both Hungarian and Serbian law, she explained. Migrants would have to cross the Serbian border illegally, thus risking criminal proceedings in Serbia too, or removal from the territory there.