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.
Zoltán, György and József live in a downtown flat in Tapolca, Hungary. A perfunctory look would reveal nothing strange about their life. Two years ago they were living in a residential institution that accommodates two hundred people, like the twenty thousand other intellectually challenged people in Hungary. Photo and article was made by Szabolcs Barakonyi and Veronika Munk (index.hu).
Two actions were launched by the HCLU regarding the right to peaceful assembly in December, 2013. Both actions concern to the same problem: lockdown of a public area around the Prime Minister's residence. In the first case, the police dispersed an ongoing peaceful demonstration on the grounds of closing off the area, for which the organizer filed a claim against the police with the help of HCLU. In the other case, another demonstration planned by the same organizer at the same venue was banned by the court, which was then challenged before the Constitutional Court. Both decisions are ill-unfounded and misinterpret the constitutional limitations of the right to protest.
There are more and more HIV and AIDS cases and most in Hungarian society have great prejudice against HIV patients, and even health professionals show obvious signs of this. Hungary has had no AIDS strategy for 3 years.
A petition was sent by three NGO-s to the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament (hereinafter: Committee) concerning the fact that Hungary has not implemented the provisions of Directive 2005/36/EC into the national legislation and therefore the recognition of professional qualifications with regard to the competence of midwives.
Instead of struggling with corruption the government is battling accusations from whistleblowers. An ex-tax surveyor, András Horváth, alleges that the tax authorities have a more lenient stance towards accentuated preferential tax payers. Consequently, it has caused trillions of forints in state debt. The people who reported may expect retaliation coming their way.
The Eötvös Károly Institute, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee and the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union criticize the abolishing of the upper age limit of 70 years in case of elected Constitutional Court judges, including current serving judges.