Human Rights Developments

Defending Human Rights

The Role of the International Community

United Nations

In May, U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan presented Hungary with the Franklin Delano Roosevelt International Disability Award for legislative work to raise awareness and promote access for the disabled "from a human rights perspective."

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)

In March 2000, the OSCE high commissioner on national minorities issued a report on the situation of Roma and Sinti in the OSCE area. In addition to over-representation in prisons and police abuse of Roma in Hungary, the report highlighted the high rate of Roma unemployment, overt discrimination in employment advertisements, and Hungary's failure to provide employment discrimination victims with an effective remedy.

Council of Europe

The European Commission on Racism and Intolerance's (ECRI) "Second Annual Report on Hungary (June 2000)" expressed concern over continuing discrimination and police abuse of Roma and immigrants. The report stated, among other things, that a large proportion of Roma children are tracked into "corrective" (i.e., remedial) schools, many teachers discriminate against Roma, and teaching materials are prejudiced against Roma.

European Union

In October 1999, the European Commission proposed that updated agreements for candidate countries seeking to join the European Union, including Hungary, make the improvement of the situation of Roma a short and medium term priority. A December 1999 European Union Enlargement Briefing reiterated that Roma in many candidate countries, including Hungary, continued to face deep-rooted prejudice and focused on E.U. support for candidate countries' action plans for integrating Roma into society.

Hungary was co-chair of the Southeast European Stability Pact's Working Table on Democratization and Human Rights from January-June 2000 during which time the working table focused on, among other things, projects promoting the human rights of national minorities, refugee return, and women's rights.

United States

The United States State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1999 noted that Roma and foreigners in Hungary were subject to discrimination and violent police abuse. The report detailed criticisms by nongovernmental organizations that conditions of detention for asylum seekers were "inhuman."