Hungarian Civil Liberties Union

The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union is a human rights NGO. Since our foundation in 1994, we have been working for everybody being informed about their fundamental human rights and empowered to enforce it against the undue interference by those in position of public power.

our focus areas & news

The Hungarian Government does everything to cover up the Pegasus affair – the HCLU’s takeaways from the first year of the scandal

It has been a year since the Pegasus scandal broke out, and developments in the case have since then demonstrated that even surveillance that breaches fundamental rights can comply with the letter of the law in Hungary. Representing seven people affected by the scandal, we are taking their cases to all possible Hungarian and international forums to fight against these unlawful practices. These are our takeaways from the past year.

Corruption Monitor - Summary from March 2020 to March 2022

In Hungary, the erosion of the constitutional state and the elevation of corruption to the status of a public policy tool are happening simultaneously, in close connection with each other, mostly hidden behind some alleged public interest objective. In the last two years, this alleged public interest objective has been to control the pandemic. K-Monitor and the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union have been documenting this process since the start of the pandemics. The summary and final report of this work covers the period from March 2020 to March 2022. In our report, we present the most significant changes in the last two years that have increased opacity and hampered the fight against corruption, budgetary irregularities, the outsourcing of public assets and measures that disproportionately affect opposition municipalities.

Russian disinformation in Hungarian public broadcast media: complaint to the European Commission

The devastating war in Ukraine is one of the key challenges of this time in Europe, and especially in Hungary that shares a border with the attacked country. Russia has been using state financed propaganda to disseminate disinformation worldwide. Despite the restrictive measures put in place by the European Union targeting Russia Today and Sputnik, Russian war propaganda has been continuously disseminated in Hungary. The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union and Political Capital filed a joint complaint to the European Commission.

Joint statement to OSCE States - Hungary Election Observation Mission

European election observers and Hungarian civil society organisations call on EU Member State governments to honour OSCE ODIHR’s recommendations and second election observers to Hungary for the parliamentary elections on April 3

Real, independent journalism is a key element of our work

We consider it important to highlight the following to our followers and partners concerning the article just published in the Hungarian propaganda media, which seeks to discredit a member of our staff and independent journalism.

Pegasus case: HCLU takes coordinated domestic and foreign legal action

The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU) is taking legal action on behalf of six of its clients before the Hungarian authorities, the European Commission, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and in Israel. The organisation aims to expose the practice of unlawful secret surveillance, to have international fora declare that the Hungarian regulation of secret information gathering violates fundamental rights and to prevent politically motivated abuses.