Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban during a business conference in Budapest, Hungary, March 9, 2023. BERNADETT SZABO / REUTERS
The Council of Europe expressed, in a report published on Thursday 9 March, its “concernin the face of hate speech and thexenophobia increasingly present in political discoursein Hungary, targeting asylum seekers, Roma, Muslims, and sexual minorities.
“Public figures, including politicians of all persuasions, are urged to take an early, strong and public stand against the expression of hate speech.“, indicates the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, a body of the Council of Europe, in the presentation of this report which covers the period 2018-2022.
Several recommendations
The Commission says to itselfpreoccupied“through the adoption of laws”seriously harmingto the rights of asylum seekers as well as LGBT people, in particular during the state of emergency introduced to deal with the Covid pandemic. The body deplores the segregation with regard to the Roma populations which remainswidespreadin the education sector, and denouncescontinued forced evictions» against them, often without «no alternative accommodation“. “Racist acts targeting Muslims have also been reported, mainly taking the form of verbal attacks against women wearing visible religious symbols.“, notes the report.
The organization makes several recommendations to the Hungarian authorities, asking them in particular to “conduct an independent review» measures adopted during the state of emergency in order to assess their compliance with human rights. It calls for a strengthening of the services responsible for identifying and dealing with “racist offensesand against sexual minorities, and the adoption of astrategy for the integration of migrants“.
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“Serious efforts”
The body also welcomed the “serious effortcarried out in Hungary to welcome people fleeing the war in Ukraine, as well as the adoption in 2019 of a protocol to improve police investigations of crimes “motivated by hate“. The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance is a body specializing in issues of discrimination in Europe. It is one of the many thematic bodies of the Council of Europe, an organization which brings together in Strasbourg the 46 signatory States of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights.
In September 2022, the European Parliament adopted a report affirming that Hungary, led since 2010 by the nationalist and very conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orban, was no longer a true democracy, but a “hybrid system of electoral autocracy“.
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