The foreign minister said the Hungarian government is always prepared to engage in dialogue on specific issues and laws but it firmly rejects remarks that call into question Hungary's democratic nature.
At a session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, held as part of Hungary’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR), Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said Hungary does not feel a need for any external authority or any other country to certify its democratic nature. The Hungarian people have constantly had to fight for freedom, he said, adding that this guaranteed that they would never tolerate a government violating their fundamental rights. Minister Szijjártó said Hungary in recent years had faced “politically-motivated” criticisms of the state of the rule of law in the country because it had a right-wing Christian Democratic government that pursues “patriotic policies” and was committed to its national identity and heritage, adding that this went against the international liberal mainstream.
The UPR has been carried out every five years since 2008 after the restructuring of the Human Rights Council. The first review of Hungary was conducted in May 2011, followed by an interim review in 2014. Hungary’s last review by the council was in 2016.
Photo credit: Facebook/Szijjártó Péter