Last week’s dismal decisions of the Hungarian Constitutional Court (CC), the National Electoral Commission and the Data Protection Authority (DPA) have proved former concerns of human rights NGOs correct: institutions, which ought to be independent and have the duty to guard constitutionalism have failed. Read the full analysis here.

In 2012, the HCLU produced 154 movies, of which 76 are foreign-language, and 78 are in Hungarian. In 2013, we produced 64 movies - 16 in Hungarian and 48 in other languages. During those two years, we won five prizes and held five training courses in video advocacy. Browse these two catalogues and open the videos by clicking on the links.

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.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” – On the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s speech the 444.hu news portal investigated what it is like for African-Americans to live in the United States today. We decided to show, using statistical data and the findings of international and domestic research projects and studies, what Romani people’s lives are like in present day Hungary.

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.