A human rights crisis has emerged in the Ukraine. One after another, the institutions and Member States of the European Union have spoken up against violence and in the defence of democracy but the leaders of the Hungarian administration keep deep silence. The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union has sent a letter to Viktor Orbán calling him as the responsible head of the Hungarian Government to stand up against the authoritarianism and violence from the part of the state in the neighbouring Ukraine and to offer mediation services to facilitate a peaceful resolution of the crisis as soon as possible.

Now that the election date has been set, we will start to feel the menacing deficiencies of the new election procedures. HCLU has started its election monitoring work, during which it is going to document if and how these procedures, which are going to be applied for the first time in 2014, harm our constitutional rights. In the coming months we are going to examine if the data, which draws an objective picture of the different election phases, supports our suspicion that the new regulations violate participation rights in practice.

The HCLU is pleased to announce the launch of a new quarterly newsletter: Global Developments in Religious Freedom and Equal Treatment. This newsletter, prepared by the International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations (INCLO), focuses on significant international developments, including cases and legislation, concerning religious freedom, equal treatment, and the intersection of the two.

In response to our call, the National Election Office (NVI) has initiated an important amendment to the electoral procedure, thereby restricting opportunities for electoral fraud. The government amended the relevant decree. HCLU welcomes the modification, as it results in the increased transparency of the elections and an increased level of protection for the right to vote. However, we hold that further modifications are necessary to prevent fraud.

Central Eastern European Countries – including Hungary – are obligated to close their segregating institutions for people with disabilities. Despite the fact that the European Union finances the reform, most of the countries spend the funds exactly in the opposite manner: enlarging and renovating the existing institutions.

The documentary produced by the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, a human rights watchdog NGO in Budapest, introduces to the viewer the most common rights violations that Roma people suffer in Hungary.