Amnesty International: Hungarian police beat and expel refugees with the support of Viktor Orbán

In the conditions of a toxic referendum campaign, toxic anti-refugee rhetoric is reaching its peak, wrote members of the human rights organization Amnesty International in a report on Hungary's treatment of migrants, AFP reports, as stated by the Patria News Agency.

They state that hundreds of migrants and refugees are subjected to physical abuse, illegal pushbacks across the border, and unlawful detention by the Hungarian police.

The report is the result of interviews conducted by Amnesty International activists with 129 migrants during the past month in Serbia, Hungary, and Austria.

People stranded in the so-called "transit zones on the Hungarian-Serbian border" said that Hungarian guards "beat them, kicked them, and set dogs on them" before forcibly returning them to Serbia.

They assess that the "terrible treatment" of migrants and the denial of an effective asylum procedure is an "intentional populist trick" to deter refugees from entering the country.

In the AI report, they state that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has replaced "the rule of law with the rule of fear" to encourage voters to reject the European Union's proposal on the distribution of refugees in the referendum to be held on October 2, reports the Patria News Agency.