Hungary: Police and immigration
01 January 1991
Hungary: Police and immigration
artdoc April=1995
New immigration law leads to massive police crackdown
Since harsh new immigration laws were brought into effect on 1
May, Hungarian police have embarked on a series of measures to
enforce the law. According to national police officer, András
Túrós, 100,000 foreigners have been checked by the police since
the drive began. And since 9 September, when the focus of the
police crackdown shifted to clubs, bars and restaurants, police
have checked the papers of more than 15,000 foreigners in such
meeting places. Of these, 1,100 have been called back for further
questioning, while some 100 foreigners, the majority of them from
the Ukraine, have been expelled. Hungarian officials justify the
raids by saying that crimes committed by foreigners have risen
three-fold during the past few years. And the Hungarian Interior
Minister, Gábor Kuncze has given the crackdown his seal of
approval: `People without legal papers should be kept off the
streets. They should get legal papers or leave Hungary'.
One raid on a Chinese restaurant in Budapest, the Peking Duck
led to strong criticisms from its manager, Kenneth Li. Fifteen
police officers burst through the restaurant door at 10.20pm, and
began questioning diners. Mr. Li says that when he attempted to
intervene, he was threatened with a beating and that the police
never produced a search warrant. He was further abused in the
storeroom when an officer threatened to shoot him and `kick and
beat him until his relatives can't recognise him'. Two Romanian
kitchen staff were arrested.
Responding to the criticisms, Police Major János Erdélyi said
that Hungary's Alien registration laws permits police to `gain
entry to every private home and privately owned area without a
warrant'.
Protests from US Embassy
Complaints from the US Embassy about the police raids has forced
the Hungarian government to launch an investigation. Diplomats
at the US Embassy had received complaints involving two medical
students briefly jailed in Debrecen and a young mother and her
two children who were roused from their beds at 2am by police
demanding to see their papers. The enforcement drive in Debrecen
resulted in the detention and questioning of nine students, seven
of them from India.
Now, police say they will establish a separate office to screen
and process Asian immigrants. Túrós says that any problems with
the police crackdown are attributable to a lack of money with
which to hire trained personnel. The official inquiry will be
carried out by the national police, the agency that carried out
the crackdown in the first place (Budapest Sun 22-28.9.94,
6-12.10.94).
Foreigners crime up three-fold say officials
Hungarian officials say that foreign criminals are committing
more crime. Five thousand six hundred foreigners committed 25,000
crimes - three times as many crimes as the numbers in previous
years (Balkan News 9.10.94).
IRR European Race Audit, Bulletin no 11, December 1994. Contact:
Liz Fekete, Institute of Race Relations, 2-6 Leeke Street, London
WC1X 9HS. Tel: 0171 837 0041