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.
On July 19th, after a lengthy legal battle, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg ruled in favor of journalist Peter Uj, represented by the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union. The journalist criticized the state owned Tokaj Kereskedőház (Hungarian winery) and specifically characterized it’s wine as shit. Criminal charges (defamation and criminal libel) initiated by the Tokaj Kereskedőház were pressed against him.
In Hungary large scale institutions still house 15 thousand people living with disabilities, often under inhumane circumstances. Watch the HCLU's new film about why this situation has to change, and why it has to change now!
The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU) and the ARTICLE 19 Global Campaign For Free Expression prepared together an Information Note on the Hungarian Media Laws that enterted into force in January 2011.
The draft law – currently before the Parliament – on Data Protection and Freedom of Information will replace the independent Data Protection and Freedom of Information Commissioner with an administrative authority. This change will seriously diminish the level of privacy protection and weaken the right to access to information in Hungary.
The 2/3 majority Hungarian Parliament, with a resolution published on June 7, set up an ad hoc parliamentary committee to investigate the events in Gyöngyöspata. Despite the fact that based on the title and preamble of the resolution, the task of the committee is to investigate the background of criminal activity by uniformed personnel and to assist in eliminating it, out of the nine tasks listed by the resolution five (!) are concerned with the evacuation of the Roma by the Red Cross and the role of Richard Field. The resolution – recalling the documents of the staged trials of the 1950s – is prejudiced when, among others, it states: “establishing who and why claimed untruthfully with regard to the long-existing activities of the Red Cross that the evacuation of the Romas from the scene was taking place, what was the reason and objective for this causing of panic”.
The HCLU's video interview with Sonja Sohn - the actress who played Kima Greggs in The Wire