Interalia

Press release by Háttér Support Society for LGBT People (Hungary):

Budapest, December 14, 2011 – After adopting a constitution that defines marriage as a union between a woman and a man, the Hungarian Parliament is currently debating a bill on family protection that would only consider households based on marriage or filiation as family. Hungarian LGBT NGOs and opposition parties strongly criticize the discriminatory approach of the bill that not only excludes same-sex registered partners, but also those heterosexual couples who do not wish to get married.

The bill submitted by three Christian Democratic MPs wishes to strengthen the institution of family “an institution that predates law and the state” and which “is based on moral grounds”. The preamble states that “being raised in families is more secure than any other forms of upbringing” and that “families fulfill their role if the stable and firm relationship of a mother and a father is consummated by taking responsibility for a child”. The bill would define family as a “relationship between natural persons in an economic and emotional community that is based on a marriage between a woman and a man, or lineal descent, or family-based guardianship.” According to the new Constitution the bill would become a cardinal law, that is, repealing it in the future would require two thirds of the votes in Parliament, which makes it as difficult to change as the Constitution itself.

The Hungarian LGBT Alliance – an umbrella organization bringing together LGBT groups – called for the rejection of the bill in its written opinion. They claim the bill has not been properly discussed: the Government circumvented the compulsory consultation with civil society by submitting the bill through individual MPs, rather than through the regular procedure. This highly objectionable method has been widely used by the current conservative government with controversial bills such as the heavily criticized new media law or the law on the electoral system.

At the center of the criticism of the Alliance is the notion of “family” which they claim is too restrictive, excludes a large number of really existing families, does not comply with the notion of family as prescribed by the European Court of Human Rights and the Hungarian Constitutional Court, and would create legal uncertainty as many other pieces of legislation include a broader definition of family or family member. The bill also runs in clear opposition to previous claims by the conservative government that they would not alter the registered partnership legislation adopted by the previous Parliament with a social-liberal majority.

The NGO critique was widely shared by the socialist and green opposition parties who rejected the outdated, exclusionary approach of the law which would “create a hierarchy between various forms of family”. Several amendments to the law were submitted that would broaden the definition of family, recognize the diversity of family forms, and prohibit discrimination among various types of families and between families based on biological or social ties. None of these amendments were supported by the relevant committees, and further amendments coming from the Christian Democrats that would prescribe that the same notion of family should be used in the whole Hungarian legal system and which would limit inheritance rights to children and parents and to spouses (excluding registered partners) was supported by the governing parties and the representative of the Government as well.

Amendments will be voted on by the plenary session of the Parliament on December 19, the final vote is scheduled for December 23. The new law would enter into force on January 1, 2012, just a few days after its adoption.

Tamás Dombos
Háttér Support Society for LGBT People

For further inquiries: E-mail to Tamas Dombos

(English text bellow.)

Homo Baby Boom
Videofilm spanyol (katalán) azonos nemű szülőkről, angol / spanyol / francia felirattal:
http://www.vimeo.com/22701135

És egy amerikai dokumentumfilm: Queer Spawn: tizenévesek LMBT szüleikkel az Egyesült Államokban:
http://www.annaboluda.com/queerspawn.html (Rendezte: Anna Boluda.)

*****

Award-winning documentary HOMO BABY BOOM is now online:
It shows the story of several families with lesbian moms or gay dads in Catalonia, Spain.

See video with English subtitles here: http://www.vimeo.com/22701135
(Also available with Spanish or French subtitles.)

And another documentary: Queer Spawn, focused on teenagers with LGBT parents in the US. (Directed by Anna Boluda.)
http://www.annaboluda.com/queerspawn.html

Press release by Hatter Society for LGBT People:

Budapest, August 8, 2011 – The Organized Crime Unit of the Budapest Police has started investigation on charges of incitement to hatred and violence against a member of a community against homophobic protesters who were planning on disrupting the Gay Pride March and who assaulted gay pride marchers leaving the premises. According to current legislation group violence against members of the LGBT community can be sanctioned by as much as eight year imprisonment.

Following incidents in previous years, this year’s Budapest Pride March held on June 18 did not end without atrocities either. Anti-gay protesters were gathering along the route of the march under the leadership of László Toroczkai, well-known head of an extreme right-wing movement in Hungary. The police managed to stop violent attacks against the march by fencing off anti-gay protesters shouting homophobic and anti-Semitic slogans and rerouting the march. After lifting the fences, however, the steamed-up mob marched to the end of the Gay Pride March route, where they insulted and assaulted participants leaving the march.

Rainbow Mission Foundation, the organizer of the March and the legal aid service of Háttér Support Society for LGBT People have reported four incidents that potentially qualify as incitement to hatred or violence against a member of a community. At Octagon Square three anti-gay protesters held up posters calling for the extermination of gays with reference to the Holocaust. According to a video prepared by news portal index.hu one of the anti-gay protesters proudly claimed he came to beat up gays. According to the same news portal a group of anti-gay protesters were following words of command to hunt down LGBT people and their friends leaving the march. A video of a larger group of extremists beating up a man carrying a pro-gay sign was posted on the website of extreme-right wing Szent Korona Radio.

The crime of violence against a member of a community was introduced in Hungary in February 2009 by extending the existing hate crimes legislation. According to the new law acts of threats and violence are sanctioned more severely if the attack is motivated by the real or perceived belonging of the victim to a social group, such as racial, ethnic or religious minorities or the LGBT community. The new law also penalizes preparation for hate crimes, that is calling for such an act or agreeing to commit such an act is already punishable without the actual attack being committed.

As opposed to the existing legislation only a tiny proportion of such attacks are investigated as hate crimes: authorities tend to disregard the hate motivation and victims are reluctant to report them because they fear prejudices on behalf of the police. In order to encourage the reporting of homophobic and transphobic incidents, Háttér Support Society for LGBT People started an online reporting interface available at www.jelentsd-a-homofobiat.hu.

Háttér Society for LGBT People
http://www.hatter.hu

For further inquiries, contact Hatter

The Rainbow Mission Foundation (the organizer of the annual LGBT festival) and PATENT (People Against Patriarchy – an NGO) intend to make a complaint against the police because of their actions during and before the festival. According to the organizers of the 15th LGBT festival, the police wanted to intimidate them.

Two weeks before the Pride March (which took place on 10th July), the police recommended to the organizers that the march should be shortened: it should stop at Oktogon and then turn back to Hősök tere. They explained that they would not have enough cordons because of the flood prevention going on in the country. “We hoped that the police would do everything they could to guarantee our security along this short route,” Sándor Steigler (organizer, Rainbow Mission Foundation) says.

When asked by a television channel, the police subsequently denied that they had referred to the flood prevention.

“We were constantly under pressure,” Steigler says. The police asked for 400 volunteers (which means two times as much as the law requires: 10%), but they still told, only two hours before the march, that they would not employ cordons at all. The police commisioner in charge soon modified this and told that they would use the cordons in case they would be needed. In the end, the side streets were defended by the use of cordons. When the march was getting close to the Oktogon, four “Hungarian fighters” appeared from nowhere, and stopped the pride truck. The police removed them but told the organizers that they would have to turn back before the Oktogon because of the extremists shouting at the end of the street.

According to Éva Simon, an expert on the right of assembly working for TASZ (Society for Human Rights), once the police and the organizers agreed upon a route, the police would have had to secure the whole of it against the extremists. The police has not given information on whether the counter-demonstration had been reported or not. In case it had been, the police should have had to designate a venue so that it would not disturb the pride march. In case it had not been reported, the police should have had to secure that the pride march reached its designated end.

Participants had other problems with the police, too. During the opening of the festival on 4th July, a young man was attacked and slapped in the face by a member of a group wearing right wing extremist badges. The incident happened very close to the main venue of the festival: the Művész movie theatre. The police asked to see the papers of the offended man. On the same evening, two gay men from Australia were also attacked. “One of them had his nose broken, and the police treated this as a case of physical injury, which is a grave mistake. Instead of investigating the case as a hate motivated crime, the police told the victims that they could file a private complaint. This is a case of mistaken qualification. Following the attacks against the pride march in 2008, the legislation widened the scope of violent attacks against communities and their members. This applies to the members of the LGBT community, too,” Éva Simon says. Balázs Dénes, the chair of TASZ adds: “We see that the police is usually reluctant to investigate cases of hate motivated incidents. This was the case in 2008 and 2009, too, in cases of attacks against participants of the pride march, but it is also typical when Roma people are attacked. The problem is that the police does not have a protocol for the investigation of such crimes, even though they require a special form of investigation. The victims of hate crimes are not treated proffessionally either.”

According to Steigler, it is not only a legal and procedural protocol that is missing. He thinks that members of the police should take part in special trainings on LGBT issues, so that they can learn how to treat victims in these cases. “We think that the police should be trained. This would help their work, too, so that they can really serve and defend communities.” According to Gábor Kuszing, a member of PATENT, the police should start by admitting their mistakes. “Otherwise there’s no sense in negotiating, as only public legal proceedings can bring about changes in the police,” he said. The police did not comment this either.

Source:
Mária Sánta: “Malfunction. The Police at the Budapest Pride.” In: Magyar Narancs, 2010. Nr. 31 (5 August), p. 15.