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The police ordered the men to kneel down and hit them hard on their backs with batons

Date & Time 2018-02-01
Location close to Kelebia, Hungary
Reported by Rigardu
Coordinates 46.17676775, 19.61093903
Pushback from Hungary
Pushback to Serbia
Taken to a police station unknown
Minors involved no
WLTI* involved no
Men involved no
Age unknown
Group size 15
Countries of origin Pakistan
Treatment at police station or other place of detention
Overall number of policemen and policewomen involved 7
Violence used beating (with batons/hands/other), kicking, insulting, theft of personal belongings
Police involved 3 police officers described as Hungarian border police (in uniforms, 2 younger and one older) with one police car, 2 male police officers with masks (in uniforms) with one police car and 3 police dogs

On January 2nd. at night, a group of 15 men from Pakistan walked from Kelibija Serbia across the Serbian-Hungarian border and continued for about 10 km inside Hungarian territory, before they were caught by 3 police officers described as Hungarian border police at about 3-4am. The police ordered the men to kneel down and hit them hard on their backs with batons, which lasted for about 5 minutes in total. All the men were in pain afterwards, and the interviewee suffered from pain in his lower back for a week and had to take medicine (no opportunity to consult a doctor).

One police officer shouted: “This is not Germany, this is Hungary, what are you doing here, go back to Serbia!” The men didn’t have an opportunity to express their intention to seek asylum. Afterwards the officers called for more colleagues to join them (2 male officers in uniforms wearing masks, with one police car and 3 police dogs). These officers searched the bodies and belongings of the men. They looked through their mobile phone files and wrote down the names of the owners and numbers of their sim cards. The officers confiscated money from the men (several hundred Euros in total) and good mobile phones (2 in total) and gave the worse ones back to the owners.

They didn’t ask or write down anything or take any fingerprints from the men. The interviewee didn’t notice if anybody took pictures of them. The police officers used insulting language, and ordered their dogs to attack them. After about half an hour at this place, the police announced that the men would be deported, and they arrived back to Serbian-Hungarian border close to Kelibija Serbia. There the police ordered the men to go back to Serbia, so the men returned to the Serbian side.