(15 Apr 2015) RESTRICTION SUMMARY: AP CLIENTS ONLY
SHOTLIST
AP TELEVISION - AP CLIENTS ONLY
FILE: Subotica, Serbia - 15 December 2014
1. Various of migrants living in camp in Subotica, near the border with Hungary
AP TELEVISION - AP CLIENTS ONLY
Budapest, Hungary - 14 April 2014
2. Human Rights Watch researcher Lydia Gall in her office
3. Cutaway of Gall using computer
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Lydia Gall, Human Rights Watch researcher:
"Human Rights Watch interviewed migrants and asylum seekers in Serbia, who told us that they have experienced abuse at the hands of police, they experienced being threatened by police, being intimidated by police and also in many cases they had money and mobile phones stolen."
5. Pan of Gall talking to colleagues
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Lydia Gall, Human Rights Watch researcher:
"If you have a situation where police are effectively using excessive force or abusing people, mistreating people, breaching procedures that they should be taking into account, then clearly there is a responsibility here upon the Serb authorities to promptly investigate these cases and to bring those responsible to justice for what they have done."
7. Gall talking to colleagues
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Lydia Gall, Human Rights Watch researcher:
"Serbia is in fact inspiring to be an EU member state. For intense when we talk about push backs, there is a right under EU law to seek asylum, which a lot of the people that we spoke to have been prevented from doing. So this is also something that Serbian authorities need to see to, so that they oblige (abide) by the rules, by the EU rules and allow people to access the territory in order to file their asylum claims."
AP TELEVISION - AP CLIENTS ONLY
FILE: Subotica, Serbia - 13 February 2015
9. Various of German police in Subotica, near the border with Hungary, sitting in surveillance vehicle equipped with night vision cameras
STORYLINE
Migrants fleeing wars and persecution are experiencing widespread harassment and abuse by police as they cross Serbia hoping to find shelter in Western European states, a leading rights group said on Wednesday.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said thousands of people fleeing Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and other violence-ravaged countries in Asia and Africa have been targets of assaults, threats, insults and extortion as they pass through Serbia on their way to the border with Hungary, where they try to sneak into the European Union.
The police denied the accusations Wednesday, saying the migrants have not complained to the Serbian authorities.
HRW's report specified various cases of harassment and abuse that included forced expulsion of the migrants and asylum seekers, including children, to neighbouring Macedonia from where they originally crossed into Serbia.
The report said that in one instance, police found some 20 migrants, mostly Syrians and Afghans, on the streets and in a makeshift camp on the border with Hungary.
The migrants said the police forced them to hand over their money and mobile phones, insulting them and threatening violence and deportation.
Five, including children, said policemen hit, kicked, and punched them.
Two said police sprayed them in the eyes with pepper spray.
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