Those racist Roma again

On 30 of April, 2013, in an extraordinary process within 24 hours, the Hungarian Parliament adopted an amendment to the Act CXII of 2011 on the Right of Informational Self-Determination and Freedom of Information. The amendment is under the procedure of promulgation, it will be published in a couple of days and will enter into force on the day following the day of its publication.

According to the Eötvös Károly Institute, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee and the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, the Constitutional Court’s decision to hear the President of the National Judicial Office behind closed doors undermines the transparency of decision-making by a public office, the right to freedom of information and the principle of fair trial.

The government has already waged a full scale attack on fundamental rights and democratic institutions with the Fourth Amendment to the Fundamental Law, Hungary’s new constitution. Now an amendment to the law on equal opportunity will open the door for segregation in schools under the paper-thin veneer of positive discrimination. The HCLU opposes both the constitutional provision which allows discrimination and the amendment to the equal opportunity law based on the former.

Lawyers from HCLU are defending a number of young activists who have recently been charged for occupying the headquarters of the governing party, FIDESZ and for blocking traffic around the Hungarian Parliament. The response by the police to the demonstrations was meant to instill fear and to scare people away from similar acts in the future.

March 20, 2013 GENEVA – As the United Nation’s Human Rights Council prepares to debate a draft motion on social protest, human rights organizations from around the world have joined their voices to call on the UN to provide meaningful protection for this essential democratic right.

Three Hungarian NGOs, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, the Eötvös Károly Institute and the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union addressed the Secretary General of the Council of Europe and the European Commission Vice-President, Commissioner in Charge of Justice, Human Rights and Citizenship in order to raise their attention to the planned Fourth Amendment to the Fundamental Law of Hungary, threatening the rule of law. The NGOs asked the Secretary General of the Council of Europe to request the Venice Commission to perform an analysis of the proposed amendments.

The person interviewed in the film has dual diagnosis, which means history both in substance abuse and psychosis. He talks about his experiences with forced hospitalization, which not helped him in recovery, but on the contrary, they contributed to the worsening of his condition.