The Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) and the Support Network for Detainees and Their Families (FECSKE) have submitted input to the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief for her forthcoming thematic report on … Read more
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC), together with the Support Network for Detainees and Their Families (FECSKE), has contributed to the call for input by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or … Read more
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee participated in a European research project examining the rights of LGBTIQ detainees in the European Union. The project assessed the situation of LGBTIQ detainees, identified challenges, gaps and promising practices and raised … Read more
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee submitted a communication to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe regarding the non-execution of the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the Magyar Helsinki Bizottság … Read more
In March 2025, the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) conducted an ad hoc visit to Hungary. To highlight pressing issues regarding conditions in Hungarian prisons, the HHC Justice Programme prepared a submission for the visit.
The Hungarian government is disregarding an interim resolution by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which exhorted the government to align legislation on life sentences with the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights.
Recent legislative proposals threaten with the “suspension” of Hungarian citizenship, violate freedom of assembly, and effectively ban Pride. These changes represent a significant escalation in the Government’s efforts to suppress dissent and weaken human rights protection, and elevate exclusion and the threatening of dissenters to a constitutional level.
How the Ombudsperson’s weak independence and concentrated mandates weaken fundamental rights protection – Human rights defenders assess the performance of Hungary’s national human rights institution
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee is participating in a European research project examining the impact of digitalisation on procedural rights in criminal proceedings in Hungary. The project aims to promote the implementation of digitalisation in criminal proceedings in a way that ensures the consistent and complete enforcement of procedural rights, providing a uniform and adequate level of protection across the EU.
Despite rulings by the European Court of Human Rights and repeated calls by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe over the past 13 years, Hungary still fails to tackle prison overcrowding and inhumane detention conditions. As a result, large-scale rights violations persist.
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee’s replies to requests to provide information by the Hungarian national focal point for the FRANET research network of the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA)
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee is participating in a European research project that examines the impact of digitalisation on procedural rights in criminal proceedings in Hungary. The project aims to ensure that, as criminal justice systems are digitalised, Member States safeguard the uniform and full enforcement of procedural rights across the entire EU.
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) utilised all human rights CSO tools (research, advocacy, empowerment, strategic litigation, public- and professional awareness raising) to eliminate mandatory glass partitioning between inmates and their family members in Hungarian prisons during visits for seven years. The seven-year-long status quo is currently changing.
In October 2024, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee submitted its observations to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on the Gubacsi v. Hungary group of cases for the 7th time. This group of … Read more
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee participated at the 2024 OSCE Human Dimension Conference and took the floor and provided written submissions on the situation of human rights defenders and civic space, on the rights of asylum-seekers … Read more
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee coordinated a coalition of three civil society organisations (CSOs) working in Hungary to contribute to General Comment 27 of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UN CRC), which focuses on children’s rights to access to justice and effective remedies. In its draft General Comment, the CRC aims to clarify the terms, approaches and actions that States should take to implement the right of all children to access to justice and effective remedies when their rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child fail to be respected.
Hungary has been failing to implement judgments of the European Court of Human Rights that established rights violations with regard to applicants sentenced to whole life imprisonment and life imprisonment with the possibility of a parole. In its recent submission, the HHC demonstrates once again how the Hungarian authorities had not only failed to carry out the necessary legal changes, but that individual measures that would be required to bring the violations to an end with regard to the applicants are prevented as well.
The HHC submitted a communication to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe regarding the execution of the judgments in the X.Y. v. Hungary group of cases on pre-trial detention. The communication argues that the group of judgments cannot be considered implemented, and deficiencies regarding pre-trial measures in the Hungarian criminal justice system remain.
The Criminal Justice Programme of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) drafted a comprehensive response to the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency’s (FRA) FRANET research network’s Hungarian focal point touching upon 18 topics related to Criminal Detention in the European Union: Conditions and Monitoring.
Nine years after the European Court of Human Rights condemned Hungary for violating the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment due to its prison conditions, detainees continue to face substandard living conditions that fall short … Read more