Joint position paper put forward by NGOs on the Hungarian Media Law and its Application

Since its re-election, the Hungarian government launched a campaign attacking the credibility of Hungarian NGOs and trying to gain controlling power over their funding distributed independently from the government. On June 12th, the Hungarian Government meets the representatives of Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein to discuss the European Economic Area / Norway Grants. While talks between the Norwegian and Hungarian officials is under way, a number of NGOs from around the world, from Kenya through Egypt to Slovakia are showing solidarity with Hungarian NGOs by publishing a joint statement at 9am in support of the Hungarian civil sector’s independence and calling upon politicians to refrain from pressuring NGOs.

The Metropolitan Court of Budapest invalidated the decision of Budapest’s chief police officer that effectively banned an announced demonstration at the Prime Minister’s residence. The decision also found that closing the area, in order to prevent the demonstration, violated the law. The HCLU welcomes the decision by the court which stated that “limiting a peaceful demonstration because it is held in the presence of a high level official but otherwise serves as an expression of a political opinion is unnecessary in a democratic society.”