In its country report, AI criticised Hungary for curtailing freedom of speech and religion and seriously discriminating against the Roma population. The ministry said that the freedoms of speech and expression are guaranteed by Hungary's constitution, media constitution and media law.

"Neither the Hungarian government, nor other political or civil organisations have the right or opportunity to interfere with the daily editorial work of the electronic or traditional media," it said.

The ministry said that Hungary's church law had been qualified as one of Europe's most liberal church laws, even by the Council of Europe's Venice Commission.

"This law does not prevent anyone from exercising freedom of religion," it said.

The ministry noted that Hungary, as EU president during the first half of 2011, had played a key role in the EU adopting a European framework strategy for the Roma, and Hungary had been the first member state to adopt a national strategy.

"The situation of the Roma is generating a multitude of tasks for the government, which have been taken in several steps over the past few years to make up for the shortfall of the previous 20 years," the ministry said. The government has taken resolute measures to increase the efficiency of the judiciary, penal procedures and the police so that the violent anti-Roma attacks of 2008-2009 should not be repeated and left unpunished, it said.

The new penal code, now before parliament, will set serious punishments for those assaulting the Roma, gay, handicapped and other communities, the ministry said.

Concerning AI's criticism of Hungary's new constitution which came into effect in January this year, the ministry said the basic law had been born in the spirit of the EU Charter on Fundamental Rights and the public were now granted broader civic rights than ever before.

The new constitution has declared the inviolability of human dignity, the rights to freedom and personal security. All in all, it complies with the traditions of European constitutions, meets all criteria of the rule of law and the commitments Hungary assumed upon its EU accession in 2004, it said.

Source: kormany.hu

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