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.
The HCLU is one of the six human rights NGOs calling on Hungarian authorities to fully investigate an incident at a school in Konyár on 5 September, and the police response. A busload of football fans stopped outside the school, which has a large majority of Roma pupils, and which had to dismiss a teacher for racist comments earlier this year. What happened next is unclear, as police reports differ greatly from eyewitness reports.
Amnesty International, the European Roma Rights Centre, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, the Legal Defence Bureau for National and Ethnic Minorities, and the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union welcomed the Budapest District Court decision according to which the series of attacks against Hungarian Roma in 2008-2009 were racially motivated.
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.”
The Chamber of Judge Miszori has a difficult task. On August 6, it will announce its first instance judgment in a criminal procedure against the four suspects who were accused of carrying out a series of racist murders in 2008 and 2009 against Hungarian Roma.
Stefánia Kapronczay, the former Head of Patients’ Rights Program, is the new Executive Director of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU).