Europe’s top court delivers a judgment:
🇭🇺 Hungary’s anti-LGBT law violates EU law and fundamental values - dignity, equality, and freedom of expression.
Labeling it “child protection” doesn’t make discrimination legal. @hrw.org
www.hrw.org/news/2026/04...
Hungary: New Government Needs to Restore Rule of Law
- Suspend Sovereignty Protection Office
- End rule by decree
- Restore assembly rights
- Repeal laws used to target critics
Latest from @hrw.org @lydsg.bsky.social
A rights agenda for the incoming government
www.hrw.org/news/2026/04...
16 years of rights-abusive rule is over. Hungary now has a historic opportunity to restore rule of law - end decree rule, dismantle the Sovereignty Protection Office, protect media freedom, ensure free assembly, repeal anti-LGBT laws, and deliver real reforms.🇭🇺#hungary www.hrw.org/news/2026/04...
Another day, another ban.
Budapest police is using “child protection” arguments to justify banning a trans rights demonstration.
This is yet another clear attack on freedom of assembly and expression for all Hungarians. www.hrw.org/news/2026/03...
Come on, @eucourtofjustice.bsky.social, what is this post??
#Hungary should fully comply with EU Court ruling which found that 201 failure to renew #Klubradio license "infring[ed] on freedom of expression & information."
At time of erosion of rule of law across Europe, this is landmark decision.
Farmers stand next to their tractor, piled high with raw cotton, outside the Fergana Region cotton collection point (ginnery) in September 2023.
“It is as if we have become hired workers for someone, not landowners” - a cotton farmer from the Khorezm region.
A new @hrw.org - @uzbekforum.bsky.social report examines the coercive state production system of cotton & wheat in #Uzbekistan.
More here: hrw.org/news/2026/02...
The HU govt used emergency powers to block lawsuits challenging the “solidarity tax,” cutting the courts out mid-case. Direct hit on judicial independence and the separation of powers. Decree should be revoked.
The EU shld act, advance Art 7 and use conditionality tools. www.hrw.org/news/2026/02...
The killing of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis offers a stark warning to the UK government of the dangers of treating civic action as a security threat rather than as a fundamental right & cornerstone of democracy, @yasmineahmed.bsky.social & @lydsg.bsky.social explain www.hrw.org/news/2026/01...
Anna, 80, shows a notebook containing detailed records of monthly expenses, for herself and her sister Erika, 84, in their home in Budapest, Hungary, October 2025. © 2025 Kartik Raj/Human Rights Watch
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"It is what it is" (or "Ez van" in Hungarian) was what so many older people I interviewed in Hungary told me with resignation-- accompanied with a shrug, raised eyebrows, or a downward glance--about the poverty they experience.
@hrw.org's findings are out now: www.hrw.org/news/2026/01...
The UK is moving to criminalize peaceful protests near “life sciences” sites - including protests about big pharma, drug prices, and animal testing.
Another step toward shrinking democratic space.
Parliament should vote this down.
🔗 www.hrw.org/news/2026/01...
The UK is moving to criminalize peaceful protests near “life sciences” sites - including protests about big pharma, drug prices, and animal testing.
Another step toward shrinking democratic space.
Parliament should vote this down.
🔗 www.hrw.org/news/2026/01...
Here @lydsg.bsky.social & @yasmineahmed.bsky.social explain what a proposed amendment to the Public Order Act 2023 could do to protest rights
Categorizing “life sciences” as “key national infrastructure” could restrict peaceful protests outside pharma companies.
www.hrw.org/news/2026/01...
When protest is criminalized, democracy weakens. My @theguardian.com op-ed on why UK protest laws should worry us all.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
The right to protest is under attack in the United Kingdom.
In a new report, HRW documents that the UK’s Labour government has failed to reverse sweeping anti-protest laws introduced by the previous Conservative government.
Learn more: https://bit.ly/4qerKB0
Demonstrators hold a banner during a protest against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PCSC) bill on January 15, 2022 in London, UK. © 2022 Rasid Necati Aslim/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Out today from @hrw.org - new report authored by colleague @lydsg.bsky.social
‘Silencing the Streets’: The Right to Protest Under Attack in the UK
www.hrw.org/news/2026/01...
"The UK should be protecting the right to protest instead of stripping away people’s rights."
Freedom of assembly is not a gift or privilege governments grant their citizens, it's a right that protects citizens from their governments. @hrw.org report out today about the impact of the UK's increasingly repressive anti-protest laws. www.hrw.org/news/2026/01...
Balog Gyula (1959-2025), lakhatási jogi és szegénységellenes aktivista a Human Rights Watch képviselőjével beszélget budapesti otthonában 2025 novemberében. Szobája falán a dél-indiai óceán távoli szigetcsoportja, az Amszterdam-sziget térképe látható, amelyről Gyula éppen regényt írt. © 2025 Human Rights Watch
Egy magyar aktivista emlékére
Balog Gyula (1959-2025) a lakhatási jogokért és a szegénység ellen folytatott küzdelem kiemelkedő alakja volt.
Nyugodj békében Gyula bacsi!
www.hrw.org/hu/news/2025...
Gyula Balog (1959-2025), housing rights and anti-poverty activist, speaking with Human Rights Watch at his home in Budapest, November 2025. On the wall is a map of Amsterdam Island, part of a remote archipelago in the southern Indian ocean, about which Balog was writing a novel. © 2025 Human Rights Watch
In Memory of Gyula Balog (1959-2025), an inspiring housing rights and anti-poverty activist
Here is a brief reflection on behalf of @hrw.org to express our condolences, as Gyula’s friends and colleagues lay him to rest today in Budapest.
Rest in power, Gyula bacsi!
www.hrw.org/news/2025/12...
Gyula Balog, Hungarian housing rights activist being interviewed by a Human Rights Watch researcher, November 2025 (C) HRW
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I was deeply saddened to hear that Gyula Balog passed away earlier this week. I met and interviewed him only a couple of weeks ago, for an ongoing research project, in his home.
Gyula described himself as "an alcoholic, a homeless person, an activist, an actor, and an expert by experience."
An older woman, age 80, shows an orange notebook that contains details of her monthly expenses.
1/3 I’ve just returned home after a week interviewing older people on low pension incomes in Hungary for @hrw.org. The findings will be out in the coming months.
This photo is of an 80 year old woman showing me her notebook of expenses, in which every last forint is meticulously accounted for.
In Hungary, Pastor Gábor Iványi, whose church supports people in poverty, faces absurd charges. The pastor and his church are human rights defenders providing shelter, food, education to people left behind by the state. The move is part of a wider crackdown on dissent.
www.hrw.org/news/2025/11...
Berättar senaste nytt:
• Joakim har äntligen fått träffa av familjen utsedd advokat i fängelset Maltepe där han sitter isolerad
• Hans reaktion på det massiva stödet senaste dygnet
• Inga formella anklagelser har delgivits honom
Swedish journalist Joakim Medin arrested on arrival in Istanbul. His whereabouts unknown.
Min kollega Joakim Medin har frihetsberövats i Turkiet. Det är helt oacceptabelt, ett angrepp på pressfriheten, och regeringen måste agera därefter.
Poland has adopted a law suspending the right to seek asylum for people entering the country via Belarus.
It's an effort to provide legal cover for Poland's abusive and unlawful border pushbacks. Learn more ⤵️
Poland just blatantly violated its own constitution, international law and Refugee Convention by adopting a law that suspends the right to seek asylum. Tusk today triggered it and closed the border to Belarus for asylum seekers. More on the law: www.hrw.org/news/2025/02...
Hungary's new anti-LGBT law bans Pride & penalizes public support for LGBT rights. It weaponizes facial recognition to target activists & suppress free expression. This is an alarming escalation of repression that demands urgent action from
@ec.europa.eu. www.hrw.org/news/2025/03...
In yet another crackdown on LGBT rights, Hungary’s parliament has passed a law that will outlaw LGBT Pride and similar events.
The law, which penalizes organizers and attendees, also authorizes the use of facial recognition technology to identify attendees.
In a significant step toward affirming the rights of transgender people in Poland 🇵🇱, the country’s Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling eliminating the requirement for trans people to sue their parents in gender recognition proceedings.
New commentary from @hrw.org: hrw.org/news/2025/03...
