The US State Department said Hungary’s media players are active and express a wide range of views.
During its 2019 country report on human rights practices in which it also cited reports of legal restrictions on civil groups, the State Department said that Hungary’s courts had generally functioned independently over the past year. It added, at the same time, that though the government generally respected the rights of detainees, official statistics and NGOs had reported overcrowding and poor physical conditions in the country’s prison system.
According to MTI, the State Department said that during the past year, human rights groups “reported receiving fewer complaints of excessive use of police force and abuse against refugees and migrants, as the number of asylum seekers decreased from previous years”.
Concerning the issue of anti-Semitism, the report said the Jewish organization Action and Protection Foundation (TEV) had registered 32 anti-Semitic hate crimes in 2018. Of those, 19 cases concerned hate speech, 10 were crimes of vandalism, and three were assault. The report also noted that Hungary successfully hosted the European Maccabi Games in Budapest between July 29 and August 7.