Secretariate of the deputy commissioner for fundamental rights ombudsman for the rights of national minorities

For 14 years now, 23 February has been the anniversary of an inconceivable barbaric crime, which induces all those of good conscience and responsibility to engage in remembrance and to self-reflection.

Joint conference of the Minority Ombudsman and the Res Iudicata Association on the current challenges and opportunities in tackling hate crime took place with a significant number of participants

The 15th session of the UN Forum on Minorities, a key event in international minority protection, was held in Geneva with great interest. Every year, the Minority Ombudsman participates as a key expert at the UN Forum on Minorities, which took place from 30 November to 2 December this year at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

Human life and human dignity know no national boundaries, but their promotion and protection is the primary duty of States. State institutions and their representatives have a special responsibility to act in all their activities with due regard for international and constitutional guarantees of equal treatment and to act in the public service with respect for the human dignity of all members of society, irrespective of origin, national or ethnic affiliation or any other membership of a minority group. The International Day of Remembrance of the Roma Holocaust reminds us that acting against extremist views is also our common responsibility, so that the horrors of the Second World War are never repeated under any circumstances.

On 16 May, the Roma Resistance Day, we honour the victims of the Roma Holocaust and the Roma people who fought against oppression, discrimination and exclusion.

An NGO has requested the intervention of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights because of a disproportionate number of infringement proceedings for unjustified school absences in a municipality in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county. This practice, according to the organisation, has targeted families with many children, living in extreme poverty, most of them of Roma origin, who often have serious difficulties in paying the fines, and the conversion of unpaid fines into detention has also endangered the care and provision of their children. In addition to the general complaint, the petitioner also asked for an investigation into a family with several children, as the mother of ten children had been the subject of 17 infringement proceedings during the period under review. The Minority Ombudsman launched an investigation into the case, which also raises systemic problems.