Category Archives: Hungary

Hungary’s Viktor Orbán will hold referendum on anti-LBGT law

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Prime minister announces referendum on ‘child protection’ three days before Budapest Pride march

Hungary’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has announced that his government will hold a nationwide referendum on “child protection”, a euphemism for parts of a recent law widely condemned as discriminatory that bans any portrayal of LGBT people in materials meant for children.

“LGBTQ activists visit kindergartens and schools and conduct sexual education classes. They want to do this here in Hungary as well,” said Orbán in a Facebook video statement placed on Wednesday.

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EU launches legal action over LGBTQ+ rights in Hungary and Poland

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Ruling is part of ongoing fight for rule of law and freedom from discrimination in heart Europe

The EU executive has launched legal action against Hungary and Poland to defend LGBTQ+ rights in the latest battle over values with the two nationalist governments in central Europe.

The announcement that Hungary and Poland’s governments could end up in the EU’s highest court is part of an ongoing existential fight for the rule of law and freedom from discrimination in the heart of Europe.

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EU parliament condemns Hungary’s anti-LGBT law

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Resolution is passed to launch legal action, but Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán remains defiant

The European parliament has denounced a Hungarian law that bans gay people from appearing in educational materials or on primetime TV as “a clear breach” of its principles of equality.

In a resolution voted in Strasbourg on Thursday by a resounding majority, MEPs condemned “in the strongest possible terms” the Hungarian law as “a clear breach of the EU’s values, principles and law”, while urging the European Commission to launch a fast-track legal case against Viktor Orbán’s government.

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EU urged to suspend funds to Hungary over ‘grave breaches of the rule of law’

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Action follows Viktor Orbán passing law banning LGBT content in schools and mishandling of EU funds

Ursula von der Leyen is being urged to suspend EU funds to Hungary to force Viktor Orbán to address concerns over politicised courts and corruption.

MEPs who work on the European parliament’s budgetary control committee are calling on the European Commission president to use a newly created EU law to freeze payments to Hungary for “grave breaches of the rule of law”.

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EU Commission urged to reject Hungary’s Covid recovery plan

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Cross-party group writes to Ursula von der Leyen over fraud, corruption and LGBTQ+ rights concerns

The European Commission is being urged to reject a coronavirus recovery plan for Hungary over concerns about fraud, corruption and the country’s stance on LGBTQ+ rights.

A cross-party group of left and liberal MEPs have written to the Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, demanding she send the Hungarian government back to the drawing board over its spending plans for a €7.2bn (£6.19bn) coronavirus recovery grant.

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‘You can’t cancel Pride’: the fight for LGBTQ+ rights amid the pandemic

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Lockdown hit LGBTQ+ communities hard but even as Pride events are called off there is hope and a promise that the parades will return

This month, for the second year in a row, there was no Pride parade in San Francisco, arguably the city most laden with history and symbolism for the LGBTQ+ community.

It is a decision Fred Lopez, who took over as executive director of San Francisco Pride at the beginning of last year describes as “heartbreaking”.

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Fractious EU summit rejects Franco-German plan for Putin talks

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Bloc to explore sanctions instead, as gathering also holds ‘emotional’ debate over Hungary’s LGBT laws

A Franco-German plan to restart talks with Vladimir Putin has been rejected at a fractious EU summit that resulted in a decision to explore economic sanctions against Russia instead.

The two-day gathering in Brussels also included an “emotional” debate over LGBT rights in Hungary, as EU leaders confronted Viktor Orbán over a law that will ban gay people from being shown in educational and entertainment content for minors.

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Goretzka sets up Germany v England last-16 tie after Hungary threaten shock

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What a white knuckle ride this was and how fortunate, in the end, Germany can consider themselves to have reached the last 16. They will play England at Wembley on Tuesday and it may either gratify or worry Gareth Southgate that another display like this would render their chances extremely slim. Surely they can only improve on a night’s work

When Andras Schafer headed them back ahead a minute after Kai Havertz cancelled out Adam Szalai’s opener, they looked bound to send the home side packing. But Leon Goretzka’s equaliser transformed the picture and staved off the ignominy of repeating Germany’s group stage exit of Russia 2018.

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Hungary’s LGBT protests and Juneteenth Day: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms from China to Colombia

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Budapest Pride goes ahead in solidarity against Hungary’s anti-LBGTQ+ laws

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As oppressive legislation passed by Viktor Orbán’s government, activists plan procession to ‘show LGBT people they are not alone’

For the second year in a row, Covid has succeeded in doing what many had once thought impossible: toning down Pride celebrations. From Berlin to Brighton, Toronto to San Francisco, parades have been cancelled or put online, floats forgotten and parties swapped for quieter, often more reflective events.

But in Budapest, where LGBTQ+ activists are engaged in a near-existential fight against the rightwing government of Viktor Orbán, the stakes were too high for Pride to take a back seat.

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One in five people in parts of EU pay bribes for healthcare, survey finds

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Corruption report says third of EU residents used personal connections to access care during Covid crisis

Almost a third of residents in the EU relied on personal connections to access healthcare during the Covid crisis, and around one in five in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Lithuania paid a bribe for such services, a report on corruption has found.

Across the EU’s 27 member states, nearly two-thirds (62%) of the 40,000 respondents in a survey conducted by Transparency International said corruption in their government was a major problem and three-quarters (76%) said it had been stagnating or getting worse.

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Opposition forces Orbán into U-turn over Chinese campus plan in Budapest

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With a general election due next year, Hungary’s government has put the divisive project in the capital’s heart on hold

Protests against the construction of a Chinese university in Budapest have energised the Hungarian opposition ahead of elections next year, and forced the government into a rare U-turn.

Outrage at plans to build a campus of Shanghai’s Fudan University became a rallying cry for the opposition, drawing thousands to protest in defiance of government regulations

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ECJ rejects Hungarian case against MEPs’ vote to pursue sanctions

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Hungary fails in attempt to argue abstentions should have been taken into account in 2018 vote

The European court of justice has dismissed an attempt by Hungary to reverse the outcome of a vote by MEPs that for the first time in the EU’s history triggered a process that could lead to a country being stripped of voting rights in Brussels.

A resolution in 2018 raising concerns over the independence of Hungary’s judiciary, the functioning of its constitution and attacks on freedoms of association, religion and expression passed by a majority of votes cast.

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Free Hong Kong Road: Budapest renames streets to frustrate Chinese campus plan

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Uyghur Martyrs’ Road and Dalai Lama Road also adorn Hungary’s capital near project condemned as ‘Chinese influence-buying’

Budapest has renamed streets around the planned site of a leading Chinese university campus to protest an “unwanted” project forced on it by the government of the prime minister, Viktor Orbán.

Four street signs at the site now bear the names Free Hong Kong Road, Uyghur Martyrs’ Road, Dalai Lama Road, and Bishop Xie Shiguang Road, the last referring to a persecuted Chinese Catholic priest.

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‘They can see us in the dark’: migrants grapple with hi-tech fortress EU

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A powerful battery of drones, thermal cameras and heartbeat detectors are being deployed to exclude asylum seekers

Khaled has been playing “the game” for a year now. A former law student, he left Afghanistan in 2018, driven by precarious economic circumstances and fear for his security, as the Taliban were increasingly targeting Kabul.

But when he reached Europe, he realised the chances at winning the game were stacked against him. Getting to Europe’s borders was easy compared with actually crossing into the EU, he says, and there were more than physical obstacles preventing him from getting to Germany, where his uncle and girlfriend live.

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France limits outdoor gatherings to six as Covid infections rise

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More areas of the country get mobility restrictions while Hungary and Poland face crises

Concern is mounting among health experts that France is not doing enough to curb a rise in coronavirus infections, particularly among younger people, as a third wave fuelled by the B117 variant first detected in the UK accelerates across Europe.

Announcing 45,000 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, the French health minister, Olivier Véran, on Thursday banned outdoor gatherings of more than six people and added three more départements, including the area around Lyon, to 16 already placed under tougher mobility restrictions.

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EU’s southern states step up calls for ‘solidarity’ in managing mass migration

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Greece, Italy, Spain, Cyprus and Malta say burden has to be shared more justly with other EU partners

Europe’s southern states have stepped up calls for solidarity in managing mass migration to the bloc saying the burden has to be shared more justly with other EU partners.

Highlighting the deep divisions over the issue, politicians from countries along Europe’s Mediterranean rim said a proposed migration pact fell far short of resolving the crisis equitably.

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Hungary’s Fidesz party to leave European parliament centre-right group

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Rightwing party’s move comes after European People’s party changed its internal rules on excluding members

Hungary’s ruling rightwing Fidesz party has said it will leave the main centre-right political grouping in the European parliament after the European People’s party (EPP) voted to change its internal laws on excluding members.

The EPP’s 180 members, many of whom have campaigned for the expulsion of Fidesz, which they accuse of weakening Hungary’s democracy and curbing media and other freedoms, voted by 148 to 28 in favour of the new rules, with four abstentions.

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‘Help and you are a criminal’: the fight to defend refugee rights at Europe’s borders

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As illegal, and often violent, pushbacks of asylum seekers continue – human rights groups also report growing hostility

At the offices of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a human rights group in Budapest, András Léderer and his colleagues have a map on which they track every asylum seeker – man, woman or child – who has been physically pushed back by police from the Hungarian border and into the forests of Serbia.

The pushbacks are illegal under international law. Yet it is Léderer and his fellow human rights activists who could face arrest and a jail sentence if they went to the border to witness what is happening there.

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You can teach an old dog new words, researchers find

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Canines in Hungarian study appear to pick up unfamiliar terms through play

Whether you can teach an old dog new tricks might be a moot point, but it seems some canines can rapidly learn new words, and do so through play.

While young children are known to quickly pick up the names of new objects, the skill appears to be rare in animals.

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