Hungarian President is in an official visit to Croatia.
House of Human Rights Zagreb and Platform for international civil solidarity of Croatia (CROSOL) demanded on Wednesday that President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović and Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, in their talks with Hungarian President Janos Ader, “unequivocally express their concern over the continuous and large-scale violations of human rights in Hungary,” reports Večernji List on April 12, 2017.
The organizations said that the Hungarian president, who in currently in an official visit to Croatia, signed a series of laws passed in Parliament which endanger human rights.
“Last week, he signed into law a de facto prohibition of operations of one of the most prestigious European universities (Central European University), and he also confirmed the previously adopted laws which violate human rights of refugees. Also, President Janos Ader did in no way condemn illegal acts by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban towards some of the non-governmental organizations in Hungary, as well as a series of attacks on free and independent Hungarian media,” reads the statement.
House of Human Rights Zagreb and civil society organizations gathered in CROSOL added that “vast majority of EU member states” were horrified with attacks by the Hungarian government and the Hungarian president on freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of the media, as well as with the treatment by the Hungarian government towards refugees. “This concern is shared by citizens of Hungary. As many as 80,000 inhabitants of Budapest came out on the streets last week to oppose repressive policies of their government.”
Croatia as a member of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations must be an active advocate for the protection of human rights in all UN member states, added the NGOs, and therefore they expect that in the talks with the president of Hungary, both the president and prime minister will “unequivocally condemn the systematic violations of human rights in Hungary” and “transparently inform the Croatian public about what they have done on this issue.”
