Stefánia Kapronczay, the former Head of Patients’ Rights Program, is the new Executive Director of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU).

Today constitutional democracy is shrinking in Hungary. Rule of law institutions, which normally should protect the rights of the individual against the state are less and less able to fulfill this objective. Using its two-third majority in Parliament, the government has dismantled, weakened or conquered these institutions to protect its power instead of the rights of the citizens.

HCLU received a special prize from Erste Foundation the same week at the end of June when it won awards from Kreatív Magazin Webvideó.

We have produced a movie to raise awareness on the current outbreak of HIV/AIDS among injecting drug users in Romania. Please watch and share this video and take action to stop HIV!

The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Independent Journalism, the Hungarian Europe Society, the Mertek Media Monitor and the South East European Network for Professionalization of Media, as signatories of the opinion on ’The Report of the High Level Group on Media Freedom and Pluralism: A free and pluralistic media to sustain European democracy’ are civil organizations with a long history of commitment to the freedoms of speech and press and extensive professional experience in this area.

We won the prize for the best Web Video documentary at the Hungarian Kreatív Magazine's Annual contest, and we won the grand prize, a GoPro camera, for our humane approach to the issues we deal with.

DUBLIN / LONDON / NEW YORK – In response to revelations that a U.S. government program known as “PRISM” gives the United States National Security Agency unprecedented access to the servers of major technology companies, an international group of Civil Liberties Organisations issued the following joint statement:

On June 13, 2013 the trial of the actio popularis against the Heves County Police begins at the County Court of Eger. The lawsuit was initiated by the HCLU against the Police for discriminating against the Roma in Gyöngyöspata based on their ethnicity and skin color during and following the extremist “patrols” of 2011. At stake: will the court hold the state responsible for the discriminative treatment of the Roma?

When the Fundamental Law came into force, HCLU publicly voiced its worries about the constitutional clause on the protection of the fetus which could lead to restrictions on abortion. The Fundamental Law states that along with the right to life and human dignity the fetus shall be protected from conception. The law on abortion has not been changed, however, the government has, through legal and non-legal means, tried to influence pregnant women which has come to undermine the right to self-determination. HCLU calls attention to the emerging problem with the following summary.

HCLU and K-monitor provided expert opinion on the government’s draft law on whistleblower protection.

The Hungarian government provided detailed comments on the so-called Tavares Report regarding the situation of fundamental rights in Hungary, which will soon be discussed by Members of the European Parliament. The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU) the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) and the Standards (Mérték) Media Monitor responded to the government’s inaccurate and unfounded comments in an analysis submitted to the factions of the European Parliament.

The decision by the County Court (Törvényszék) of Miskolc to sentence nine Roma persons for racism „against Hungarians” for attacking the car of far-right activists in a small Hungarian town, Sajóbábony shows serious misunderstandings in how courts apply the law and demonstrates the wide-spread negative discrimination present in criminal sentencing.