UN Human Rights Council 49: UK statement for the Universal Periodic Review Adoption – Hungary

The United Kingdom welcomes Hungary’s engagement with the Universal Periodic Review.

We also commend Hungary for their humanitarian response at the Ukrainian border in the wake of Russia’s unprovoked, premeditated assault against a sovereign democratic state.

We welcome Hungary’s continued commitment to eliminate human trafficking and their acceptance of our recommendation to create a specialised framework for identifying and assisting child victims of human trafficking. We hope Hungary will implement this as soon as possible.

We regret that Hungary did not accept our recommendation to repeal discriminatory legislation, including the 2020 amendments restricting adoptions for same-sex couples. We remain concerned by a series of measures introduced in Hungary in the past few years that discriminate against the LGBT+ community.

We are also disappointed that Hungary did not support our recommendation to introduce legal safeguards to make the Media Council more pluralistic and free from political interference. It is vital that Hungary has a varied media landscape, and that all media regulatory bodies are independent.

The UK looks forward to our continued collaboration with Hungary. We encourage the Government to submit a mid-term report to provide an update on progress.