hclu film 2013 Video Advocacy Activities of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union
“HCLU videos get the voice out that otherwise would not be heard. It also helps our movement itself to define our own messages.” Rick Lines, Director, Harm Reduction International “The HCLU drugreporter films from our point of view open a new dimension in advocacy for drug policy reform.” Eberhard Schatz, Director, Correlation Network, The Netherlands “Your ability to produce these videos in such short time, in such high level is absolutely fantastic. Its an educational vehicle, its inspirational for other people that this level of professionalism can be brought to this, and also, because HCLU is in the cutting edge of all the discussions and debates in drug policy, it provides a fantastic opportunity. I only wish we could imitate what you are doing in the United States”. Ethan Nadelmann, Director, Drug Policy Alliance, USA “In Asia it would work amazingly because not all of us can read and write, but we can wach stuff and listen.” Dean Lewis, Asian Network for People who Use Drugs “The more people that we can reach through these types of videos, the better.” Joseph Amon, Director, Health and Human Rights Division, Human Rights Watch, USA
“I also forward some of the movies to Ministry of Health colleagues as part of my responsibility for monitoring developments in international drugs policy.” Bruce Atmore, Senior Policy Analyst, Ministry of Health, New Zealand “The films that you make are dynamic, they are not boring, they make people want to watch them.” Anya Sarang, Director, Andrey Rylkov Foundation, Russia “We count on you because we are very bad communicaters as civil servants, and you are good communicators. So please go ahead.” Carel Edwards, Former Head of the European Commission’s Anti-Drug Coordinating Unit, EU “I personally retweet all your videos on my twitter.” Mauro Guarinieri, Senior Civil Society Officer, The Global Fund, Geneva, Switzerland “Politicians know that these tools are exposing them to criticism and scrutiny, and they do watch these videos. So they can have a really big impact.” Steve Rolles, Senior Policy Analyst at Transform Drug Policy Foundation
“The way you do it is not in a two hundred pages report but in a very simple clean cut video that is putting out messages which helps empower young people and break stigma and discrimination.” “No one does video advocacy like the Aram Barra, Director Espolea, MexHCLU. We are all mutually supporting ico each other and pushing our messages and agenda forward. I think its an incredibly collaborative effort, and you “This goes everywhere, this goes all guys listen to what people say but you over the world. Advocacy is much more also say this is where we should be go- important to spend money on than reing. I think you do an incredible work.” search. The research is there, now the must use the research to Allan Clear, Director, Harm Reduc- advocates make the case.” tion Associaton, USA Pat O’Hare, Honorary President, Harm Reduction International Written by István Gábor Takács, Video Advocacy Program Director, using the drug policy related written text by Peter Sárosi, the roma rights related texts by Eszter Jovánovics, and the disability rights related text by Tamás Verdes. English language proof-reading by Joseph Foss. The report is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. 2014, Budapest.
2
CONTENT Overview Highlights Staff and contributors Prizes Availability Equipment and funding Trainings Foreign Language Films Drug Policy Disability Rights Hungarian language films Disability Rights Roma rights Drug Policy Freedom of Speech Freedom of Information Sex work Political Freedoms Patients’ Rights Fundraising
3
OVERVIEW Highlights The HCLU produced 64 movies in 2013. Sixteen are Hungarian language films and 48 are foreign language movies. We won three prizes and held four trainings teaching video advocacy. In 2013 we filmed a great deal on the recent changes in drug policy in North America. We followed the legal regulation ballots in Washington and in Colorado. Our film about the only North American legally supervised injection site, InSite, won the main prize for best online documentary in Hungary. We were the official filmmakers of the Drug Policy Reform conference in Denver and produced 27 videos there. We filmed footage of the recent HIV crisis among drug users in Romania, and reported from the Commission on Narcotic Drugs. We filmed at the Vilnius Harm Reduction Conference and released a movie on the Drug War in Mexico. Our Hungarian movies were similarly interesting and useful. By filming the municipality meeting and creating a public outrage, we were able to stop the municipality of Szilvásvárad from rejecting people living with disabilities who wanted to move into town froma mass institution.
4
The major highlight of 2013 was the publication of our documentary titled “Without a Chance - The experiences of the HCLU’s Roma program” which is the continuation of our previous movie “Without Rights.” Through the footage filmed over three years in the North-Eastern part of Hungary by the HCLU, we get to know how discrimination is present in all aspects of life for Roma people: disadvantages at the labour market, discrimination at municipalities, by the police and by the judicial system. We witness how hate crime against the Roma is tolerated, and how the law that was originally introduced to protect minorities is in real life used against them. Finally, we show how the segregation of Roma children at the Hungarian school system makes sure that Roma people live with us “Without a Chance.” We also held four trainings in 2013, to teach fellow activists video advocacy.
Staff and Contributors The HCLU film staff was István Gábor Takács as the head of the video advocacy program, editor and director, Ádám Surányi as editor and director for the Roma program, and Róbert Bordás as a half time cameraman and editor. In 2013, the directors of the HCLU, Attila Gábor Tóth and Stefánia Kapronczay workeded as producers. The drug policy films are made with Péter Sárosi, Director of the Drug Policy Program, who works as a reporter and director on the films. Tamás Verdes, the Disabilities Program Coordinator, films and edits his own movies. The video staff worked together on the movies with the other program staff, such as Rita Bence of the Patients Rights Program, Dalma Dojcsák, Éva Simon, Fanny Hidvégia and Szabolcs Hegyi of the Freedom of Information, Data Protection Program and Political Freedoms programs, Ferenc Bagyinszky the HIV/AIDS Program Director and Anna Kertész, the HCLU Communications director. The Roma program staff was working closely with Ádám Surányi and Róbert Bordás on the Roma Right movies: Eszter Jovánovics, Head of Roma Program; Mihály Simon, Roma Program Lawyer and Field Worker; Szabolcs Miklós Sánta, Lawyer of the Roma Program; Anita Vodál, Roma Program Trainee Lawyer. Folk György worked as EDPI coordinator in 2013. Mónika
Paulik worked as fundraiser. Andrea Pelle worked as Head of Legal Aid Service, and Levente Baltay worked as Legal Aid Service Officer. Andrea Polgár, Nóra Perlik and Gabriella Harmat provided the logistical background. As in previous years, would like to thank those kind people who voluntarily or for very little compensation helped us in narrating, subtitling or translating our films: Balázs Szigeti, Alexandra Gurinova, Katalin Sós, Tamás Kardos, Dávid Fekete, Máté Kerényi, Péter Büki, Ágnes Kövesi, Anna Recski, Lili Török, Hunter Holliman, Martin Steldinger, Jan Stola, our friends at Espolea, Aram Barra, Brun Gonzales and Gabo Amezcua, and the EDPI partners at Initiative for Health Foundation who voluntarily translated a lot of subtitles. Special thanks to Jerry Dorey and Joseph Foss who corrected many mistakes in our English language publications.
5
Prizes The HCLU’s movies shared a Special Award at the Hégető Honorka Prize ceremony. The aim of the Prize is to acknowledge television and online video works aimed at highlighting the problems of marginalised groups, and raising public and media awareness. It was a big honour for us to be awarded this prize in 2013. The jury did not single out one specific movie, but rewarded the HCLU film production unit’s work as a whole. In presenting the prize, György Baló praised the HCLU’s work, saying that we know more about human rights than TV film-makers, but they know more about the techniques involved in film production, and so we can mutually learn from and support each other. It is the third year in a row that we’ve won first prize at Kreatív magazine’s annual Web Video Contest. We won the prize for the best Web Video documentary for our movie ‘InSite: Not Just Injecting But Connecting’, and we won the grand prize, a GoPro camera, for our humane approach to the issues we deal with.
6
The HĂŠgeto Honorka prize that we won in 2013. 7
Availability The foreign language films with accompanying articles on the HCLU website can be found at http://tasz.hu/ en/hclu-film and in Hungarian at http:// www.tasz.hu/tasz-film. We have English and Hungarian language databases with all the info about the films including download and streaming links and downloadable subtitles at http://tasz.hu/ en/hclufilmsdatabase and in Hungarian at http://tasz.hu/taszfilmadatbazis.
Equipment and funding In 2013 we bought a Canon 5d mark III, which provides outstanding image quality. The HCLU video advocacy program does not have a standalone budget, but gets its funding from other programs of the HCLU. The vast majority of its funding is provided by the Open Society Foundation’s specific programs, mostly in the form of financing from the Drug Policy Program that runs the European Drug Policy Initiative. We are also supported by the International Harm Reduction Development Program of the OSF, the mental health Initiative of the OSF, the Open Society Foundation Institute, the Common Sense for Drug Policy foundation, the Royal Netherlands Embassy, the Media Law Defense Initiative, and our card holding members and individual donors. HCLU does not accept Hungarian state funding at all. We are grateful for the support provided through our crowdsourcing campaign at Global Giving.
8
Trainings The head of the video advocacy program held a two day long training in Sarajevo for independent filmmakers who would like to produce advocacy movies in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is an EU funded anti-discrimination project that is largely modeled after the HCLU’s Roma program, and which is using innovative methods like legal clinics, internet based legal counseling and video advocacy. The editor and cameraman of the program participated in another EU project, which aims at empowering Roma in Hungary. One element is the use of video. Our colleagues helped develop and conduct the training of trainers, who would then train adults and children in filming: to show them not only as portrayed by the media, but to see their real everyday lives. The HCLU video program director and Roma program video coordinator held a 5 day long training for 14 international members of the Open Society Foundation’s European Civil Liberties Project. In addition to filming at the Vilnius Harm Reduction Conference, had a workshop on video advocacy, together with Matt Curtis from VOCAL,NY and Greg Scott from Sawbuck Production. We uploaded the whole material of the workshop.
9
10
Participants at the training held for the Open Society Foundation’s European Civil Liberties Project. 11
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILMS
12
13
Drug Policy REFORM IN THE UNITED STATES
The Drugreporter was the official filmmaker of the International Drug Policy Reform Conference 2013 in Denver, Colorado, organized by the Drug Policy Alliance. We recorded and uploaded 21 speeches of the opening, closing and award ceremony, 5 full sessions and produced a video summary of the event for the closing ceremony which was shown with great success. 14
Rally of drug reform activists in Denver, Colorado. 15
Istvรกn Gรกbor Takรกcs of the HCLU Drugreporter filming Ethan Nadelmann in Denver, Colorado. 16
Péter Sárosi, Head of the Drug Policy Program, at a medical marijuana dispensary in Denver, Colorado.
LEGAL REGULATION OF CANNABIS IN THE US
The International Drug Policy Reform Conference in Denver provided us an excellent opportunity to make a film about the new marijuana regulation in Colorado. The law, passed by a ballot initiative last year, makes the recreational use of marijuana legal But who can cultivate cannabis and who can open a legal store to sell it? How much tax revenue marijuana will generate? What can we expect from the federal government? We interviewed activists to find the answers to all those questions,
and published our movie “A MILE HIGH IN DENVER - How Colorado Legalized Marijuana”. While at the Harm Reduction Conference in Portland, the video advocacy team of the HCLU travelled to Seattle in November 2012, to find out why people voted ‘yes’ on I-502, an initiative to regulate and tax marijuana. In our movie ‘A New Approach to Marijuana in Washington’ we explain the new regulatory plan. 17
INSITE - NOT JUST INJECTING BUT PREVENTING PRESCRIPTION CONNECTING OVERDOSE DEATHS
InSite is the only legally-operating safer injecting facility for drug users in North America, supervising more than a million injections since 2003, without a single death. Our fifteen-minute documentary titled ‘Insite - Not Just Injecting, But Connecting’ introduces the services of InSite, and their heroic fight with a government that has tried everything to shut the program down so far without success. This movie was watched 24600 times, and won the prize for best Hungarian online documentary in 2013 by Kreatív Magazine.
18
For a long time, harm reduction has been largely perceived as a reaction to the HIV epidemic among injecting drug users. But drug use can cause other kinds of harm, besides blood-borne infections, and pragmatic, humane methods exist to prevent this as well. One of these types of harm is becoming more and more alarming, especially in the US: drug overdose. There are 100 overdose deaths in the US every day, with more people dying from an overdose than in a car accident. We produced a short movie on “How To Prevent Prescription Drug Overdose Deaths?” focusing on the United States.
19
20
Pearl, showing how to inject safely at InSite. 21
Government Must Stop HIV in Romania - TAKE ACTION!
We have produced a movie to raise awareness of the current outbreak of HIV/AIDS among injecting drug users in Romania. For many years, HIV infections were very rare among injecting drug users in Romania: one or two cases annually. This situation has changed dramatically in recent years. A market boom in new psychoactive stimulants (sold as “ethnobotanicals”) has led to 22
a rapid increase in the number of drug injections: a heroin user injects 4-5 times a day - a stimulant drug user 10-15 times. There are harm reduction programs in Romania which aim to prevent the sharing of injecting equipment, thus, blood born infections. Most of these programs were funded by the Global Fund – but after the country entered the EU, it ceased to be eligible for GF money.
Using the services of the needle exchange by ARAS in Bucharest, Romania. Many homeless drug user live in the sewer system in Bucharest. 23
24
The government did not provide money to ensure the sustainability of harm reduction programs, so they had to cut back on their services. The result is a fast-growing HIV epidemic among injecting drug users. Harm Reduction programs have tried to bridge the funding gap, using EU structural funds, but these grants came to an end at the end of June – as a result, many programs are facing shutdown. Together with our Romanian EDPI partner, the Romanian Harm Reduction Network, we launched an email campaign. Our movie was watched 10 thousand times on Index.hu, and 188 letters were sent to the Prime minister and the health minister of Romania. The Avaaz petition reached more than thousand people. The campaign keeps running and we hope the programs finally get funding.
25
United Nations and international issues The HCLU has been making films about the annual Commission on Narcotic Drugs since 2008. In 2013 we produced three movies at the meeting. New psychoactive substances were high on the agenda of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) this year. In our summary movie, titled ‘The UN on Drugs: Trends in 2013’ we interviewed key decision makers and professionals to map the new trends in international drug control. Viewers can learn about the innovative approach of New Zealand to new psychoactive drugs (“legal highs”), the views of the head of the UN agency on drugs on the legalization of marijuana in two US 26
states, the speech of the Bolivian president and the new marijuana regulation scheme of the government of Uruguay. As in recent years, we also uploaded the full speech of Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, and with the help of Espolea, we subtitled it in Spanish and English. The emerging market of legal substitutes for currently illegal drugs poses a challenge for both policy-makers and service-providers. There is a lack of research evidence on the risks of their use in the long run, and politicians are often puzzled as to how to regulate them. We interviewed Peter Dunne, the Minister of Revenue of New Zealand. He explained the innovative legislative approach his country has adopted towards new psychoactive drugs.
A government delegate at the CND trying to stop us filming. 27
Ten years after decriminalization, the HCLU film crew travelled to Lisbon and Porto to gain an overview of how Portugal succeeded with drug policy reforms and what lessons could be learned. This movie was published in november 2012 to accompany the Open Society Foundation Global Drug Policy Program’s publication on the same topic. http://drogriporter. hu/en/portugal10 On this occasion, besides our first movie dedicated to the general situation in Portugal, we recorded a short movie about our Portuguese partner in European Drug Policy Initiative, APDES (Agência Piaget para o Desenvolvimento). In collaboration with the Open Society Foundation’s Global Drug Policy Program, the CEU School of Public Policy presents a series of debates devoted to complex and interdisciplinary issues raised by illicit drugs and global and national policy responses to them. We are recording this series. The first event was titled “Drugs and Development: Punishing the Poor”. and the second ‘The 28
Global Drug Prohibition Regime: Half a Century of Failed Policymaking?’ The HCLU is one of the NGOs which have mounted a campaign to count the costs of the global drug war, that is, to urge governments to undertake a transparent review of current drug policies. With our “Count the Costs” movie series we are contributing to the campaign goals by highlighting the devastating negative effects of global prohibition. In the third piece we explain how the war on drugs undermines security and development. Countries where there is little economic infrastructure and an unstable political system are becoming havens for drug traffickers. For many decades, the United Nations has relied on the eradication of drug crops, interdiction of trafficking and strengthening military and law enforcement agencies to fight this menace, but policies based on the prohibitionist drug conventions have led to disastrous consequences.
Showing our movie at the closing of the International Harm Reduction Conference.
We traveled to Vilnius to the International Harm Reduction Conference, where we produced eight movies on site, one each day. On the first day we recorded a brief interview with John Peter Kools, the Chair of Harm Reduction International, on why ‘Harm Reduction Is More Than Syringes.’ We filmed key sessions and interviewed several people about how they see the state of the harm reduction movement in 2013. We produced a movie for the closing ceremony, showing how harm reduction programs are fighting for survival in a time of financial austerity, as well as the thoughts of the former presidents of Poland and Switzerland on the war on drugs, and why they think harm reduction should move beyond public health. We uploaded the full speech of the former president of Poland, Alexander Kwasniewski, who apologized for supporting the criminalization of drug users during his presidency. We uploaded a powerful message from the drug user
community, presented by Eliot Albers, Executive Director of INPUD. In another fully uploaded presentation Ruth Dreifuss, the former president of Switzerland, points out that time has come for a broader understanding of harm reduction beyond public health. We filmed at a press conference on Ukraine: Last year, for the first time since 1999, there was a decrease in the number of new HIV cases in Ukraine thanks to the harm reduction services financed by international donors. Some people say harm reduction is a Trojan horse for drug legalization - others say harm reduction is about public health and not about politics. The Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) made a powerful speech on harm reduction and drug policy reform, and we uploaded it. We produced a short video interview with Jean-Paul Grund on the drug ‘Krokodil.’ The interview was made on the occasion of a new and freely downloadable study, published in the International Journal on Drug Policy. 29
Latin America The War on Drugs in Mexico: Is There an Alternative? The HCLU’s video advocacy team travelled to Mexico in 2010 to film the negative consequences of the war on drugs campaign launched by President Felipe Calderon in 2006. When we first entered the country, the number of people killed in the war was approaching 40,000. Today, the death toll is approximately 60,000. With the help of a like-minded local NGO, Espolea, we interviewed several politicians, professionals and activists, to find out why so many people had to die: Were they the necessary costs of an unescapable but winnable war, as many decision-makers claim, or the victims of a failed policy?
30
31
Disability Rights We produced a movie on a new mental health report on Europe, titled ‘Mapping Exclusion’. The report shed light on the main problem: The institutionalization of people with mental health problems is one of the blatant human rights violations across Europe which is integrated into social policy in most countries. While countries have ratified the United Nations Convention on Rights of People with Disabilities, most of them are reluctant to close old institutions and develop an alternative system, which supports people with disabilities living and working in the community.
JosĂŠe van Remoortel, Senior Policy Advisor, Mental Heath Europe. 32
HUNGARIAN LANGUAGE FILMS
33
Disability Rights Local governments of Bélapátfalva and Szilvásvárad, two small settlements in Hungary, protested against disabled people who were going to move into their community. The HCLU filmed the municipality meeting and published their shameful behaviour in the movie “Exile from Szilvásvárad”. After the movie appeared in the news, public outrage forced the municipality of Szilvásvárad to change it’s position and accept the residents.
34
35
Tomi 36
“It is common in Hungary that if the child is disabled, he has to stay in an institution.” Says Réka, the mother of Tomi, who died at the institution not long after he was taken there. Their parents tried to raise him at home, but since Tomi had to go to school, and the local bus stopped running to the school where he used to go, they had to choose: stay home with him and not earn a living, or send him to an institution. Our movie “Suffering to let go” shows this heartbreaking story.
37
Service user of Villa Voortman.
Our movie “There’s not enough for clothes or shoes” is about the hardships of raising a child with disabilities in Hungary. They have no chance for culture, entertainment or travel. The parents bought no clothes for years, and have not bought a new carpet for ages. They can buy some toys for their child, but only buy food from the discount shelf. They eat few fruits, and only sometimes meat, instead eating pasta, potatoes and rice. What money they have, they spend on medications, the wheelchair repair or the physiotherapist. Children living with multiple disabilities still have no access to school in Hungary. In the last 20 years, the Hungarian public education system proved to be unable to cope with the schooling of three thousand children for this reason. The HCLU is working as anadvocate for these children. In a blogpost about the issue, we uploaded the full speech of Eszter Márkus, researcher at the Bárczi 38
Gusztáv Faculty of Special Education. “The programme is you” – This is an account from a mental health service user. 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 has not helped him recover, but on the contrary, has contributed to the worsening of his condition. We made a short movie of the press conference at the 2013 UN CEDAW report, that states among other things that the Committee remains concerned that women with disabilities face sterilization without their free and informed consent, and are excluded from gynecological and breast screening tests. We also made a short movie about a protest by ten NGOs. They asked the prime minister János Áder not to sign the new Civil Code, as it violates international law.
Attiláné Kun and Andris Bacsa. 39
J贸zsef Horv谩th and her wife counting the fines. 40
Roma Rights Our documentary titled “Without a Chance - The experiences of the HCLU’s Roma program” is the continuation of our previous movie “Without Rights.” Through the footage filmed over three years in the North-Eastern part of Hungary by the HCLU, we get to know how discrimination is present in all aspects of life for Roma people: disadvantages at the labour market, discrimination at municipalities, by the police and by the judicial system. We witness how hate crime against Roma is tolerated, and how the law that was originally introduced to protect minorities is in real life used against them. Finally we show how the segregation of Roma children at the Hungarian school system makes sure that Roma people live with us “Without a Chance.” The movie is 90 minutes long, and it was published on December 10, Human Rights day, as the leading article on Index.hu.
41
The editing timeline of our movie “Without a Chance.“ 42
43
44
We greeted and uploaded the two trial decisions in which the radical right-wing blogger Polgár ‘Tomcat’ Tamás was found guilty of incitement against a community for his blogpost in which he called on people to beat up Roma people on the street. (First and second trials are available here) HCLU vs. Police: the trial over discrimination against Roma. After the events at Gyöngyöspata (see here) the police began the practice of fining the Roma mostly for bagatelle traffic violations, while the extremists were never fined for similar minor offences, a practice that has increased tensions and exacerbated the fearsome and humiliating atmosphere that the Roma faced. We produced a movie about the discriminatory practice of the police. Football fans on their way to a football match stopped at a school in Konyár and were shouting inside. The police did not investigate the case properly. In our movie “NGOs say the police made mistakes at Konyár” we explain the situation. Our lawyer also represents one of the defendants in the “Sajóbábony case”, in which again, Roma people are charged with hate crimes against Hungarians for an attack on a car of presumably far-right persons. The first instance judgement found them guilty of hate crime, and we appealed against the judgement. The second instance court rendered its judgement in September 2013. We seriously criticized the judgement as it upheld the first instance decision finding the perpetrators guilty of hate crime. We
are currently working on the plea for revision by the Supreme Court and on the application to the European Court of Human Rights in the case. We are following the case with our camera. Our lawyers were also representing two of the defendants in the “Miskolc case” in which nine Roma were convicted on first instance for having committed a hate crime (violence against a member of the community) against persons presumably belonging to far-right groups. In a court movie about the verdict of the Miskolc Appeal Court we welcomed the final judgement as it established that “anti-Hungarian” motivation behind the crime was not proven by the prosecutor and therefore the perpetrators were found guilty of rowdyism instead of hate crime. We are filming this case as well. According to the HCLU, the protesters at the Devecser Jobbik Demonstrationcommitted incitement, but the police did not investigate. After the incitement incident, a far right mob threw stones at the houses of Roma and committed hate crimes, but only one person was charged with this act. In our short movie “Incitement at Devecser” we discuss this issue. Szőllősi Gábor, an HCLU employee who works at Érpatak and monitors the far-right mayor’s extreme actions, was awarded by the Raoul Wallenberg Prize. The state fails to protect him from harassment by the mayor, yet it gives a prize to reward him. Now we are waiting for real action as well. We filmed the award ceremony. 45
Drug Policy ‘Exchange for Chicks’ The needle exchange program of the Blue Point Drug Counselling and Outpatient Centre has a unique program: Every two weeks they have an event only for women, mostly marginalised sex workers and drug users. This program is running out of funds and we produced a movie to help promote them and raise funds. We also uploaded all eight speeches of the presenters at the Hungarian Drug Policy conference. Virág Kováts, social worker of Blue Point and her client. 46
Dalma Dojcsák of the HCLU and Péter Uj, chief editor of 444.hu.
Freedom of Speech Journalists are under pressure due to the current criminal definition of slander and libel and the possible law enforcement procedures lodged against them as a result. They are therefore threatened personally by such public power. Said definitions ensure an extra protection for public figures in comparison to private citizens whereas the rule of law normally requires the exact opposite. In other words, the representatives of the state should endure heavier criticism. The aim of HCLU is to decriminalize slander and libel so that political critique is not threatened by criminal sanctions.
We produced a movie about it featuring prominent journalists. According to the Ombudsman’s office and the court, there is segregation of Roma children at the primary school of Gyöngyöspata. A journalist at the Guardian wrote an article about it. The Hungarian news channel ‘HírTv’ accused the journalist of lying about the issue. We produced a movie and a blog post, in which we say the news channel distorts the facts (For details and the movie click here http://tasz. hu/node/2635). The TV channel sued us for defamation. We won the case and published the verdict in a short movie. 47
Freedom of Information The HCLU won a lawsuit over a freedom of information request regarding the frequency use contracts of national commercial TV channels against the Media Council of the National Media and Info-communications Authority at the Supreme Court. TV2 and RTL (two major commercial TV channels) participated in the litigation as intervening parties in support of the Media Council in order to avoid the disclosure of their contracts. Our movie “Wasting time is over” documents this case.
tax to anti ragweed activity. From taxpayers the amount of HUF 1,5 billion was collected in the central budget for this purpose but there is no evidence that it was spent on the addressed issue. We sued the ministry for the data and won. The case created outstanding media coverage and the Ministry challenged HCLU’s report on the events. We proved our point with a new HCLU film.
Sex Work
We uploaded the discussion forum on Sex Work organised by the Association of Hungarian Sex Workers (SZEXE)in which the criminologist Dr. Erzsébet Tamási talked about better ways of During the years of 2009-2010 there was regulating Sex Work in Hungary. a possibility to offer 1% of the person’s
48
Political freedoms 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. We filmed the press conference. We uploaded all the speeches of the protest ‘The Constitution is Not a Toy!’ with key speakers such as Miklós Tamás Gáspár, Márta Pardavi, Emese Süvecz, Pál Mércse, Fanni Aradi and Sarolta Deczki.
We also followed a spontaneous protest in the city that was launched to ask the President of Hungary János Áder not to sign the constitution’s fourth amendment.
Patients’ Rights Where is home birth today? - It’s been two years since home birth finally became regulated in Hungary. The practice shows however, that it is still not a real choice for women in Hungary. In our short movie, mothers talk about their experiences.
A spontaneus protest blocking the Chain Bridge in Budapest. 49
50
Fundraising The 1% law in Hungary. The 1% law allows taxpayers to transfer 1% of their previous year’s paid personal income tax to the charity of their choice. In our 2013 fundraising movie, celebrities and members of vulnerable groups help us explain why it is worth it to support the HCLU during with this 1%.
The singer and actress Bori PĂŠterfy in our fundraising movie. 51
Hungarian Civil Liberties Union 2014
52