Amnesty Denounces Refugees' 'Shocking Conditions' in Hungary

"The police told me to go back and let the dog on me," a 16-year-old Afghan was cited as saying in the latest Amnesty International report on the treatment of refugees and migrants in Hungary.

In a press release on Tuesday, the rights organisation wrote that refugees and migrants face "shocking conditions" in Hungary.

They include "violent abuse, illegal push backs and unlawful detention at the hands of Hungary's authorities and a system blatantly designed to deter them".

The report came on the eve of Hungary's October 2 referendum on whether to accept mandatory EU quotas for resettling migrants, which aims to relocate 160,000 refugees across the bloc.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had "replaced the rule of law with the rule of fear," John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International's Director for Europe, said in a statement.

"His attempts to deliberately prevent refugees and migrants from reaching Hungary have been accompanied by an ever more disturbing pattern of attacks on them and the international safeguards designed to protect them," he added.

The report stated that migrants and refugees seeking to enter the EU by crossing the Serbia-Hungary border are either forced to wait months to enter Hungary lawfully, or face violence and detention if they cross into the country illegally.

Since Hungary built a fence along its border with Serbia in September 2015, refugees are only allowed into the country through so-called "transit zones", metal containers where the authorities process about 30 asylum claims per day.

"At the time of Amnesty International's visit to the Hungarian-Serbian border, more than 600 people were staying in makeshift camps, many for months on end," the watchdog organisation wrote.

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