Hungary has long been an integral part of Europe. It converted to Western Christianity before AD 1000. Although Hungary was a monarchy for nearly 1,000 years, its constitutional system preceded by several centuries the establishment of Western-style governments in other European countries. Following the defeat of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy (1867-1918) at the end of World War I, Hungary lost two-thirds of its territory and nearly as much of its population. It experienced a brief but bloody communist dictatorship and counterrevolution in 1919, followed by a 25-year regency under Adm. Miklos Horthy. Although Hungary fought in most of World War II as a German ally, it fell under German military occupation following an unsuccessful attempt to switch sides on October 15,1944. In January 1945, a provisional government concluded an armistice with the Soviet Union and established the Allied Control Commission, under which Soviet, American, and British representatives held complete sovereignty over the country. The Commission's chairman was a member of Stalin's inner circle and exercised absolute control.

The provisional government, dominated by the Hungarian communist party (MKP), was replaced in November 1945 after elections which gave majority control of a coalition government to the Independent Smallholders' Party. The government instituted a radical land reform and gradually nationalized mines, electric plants, heavy industries, and some large banks. The communists ultimately undermined the coalition regime by discrediting leaders of rival parties and through terror, blackmail, and framed trials. In elections tainted by fraud in 1947, the leftist bloc gained control of the government. Postwar cooperation between the U.S.S.R. and the West collapsed, and the Cold War began. With Soviet support, Moscow-trained Matyas Rakosi began to establish a communist dictatorship.

By February 1949, all opposition parties had been forced to merge with the MKP to form the Hungarian Workers' Party. In 1949, the communists held a single-list election and adopted a Soviet-style constitution which created the Hungarian People's Republic. Rakosi became Prime Minister in 1952. Between 1948 and 1953, the Hungarian economy was reorganized according to the Soviet model. In 1949, the country joined the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA, or Comecon), a Soviet-bloc economic organization. All private industrial firms with more than 10 employees were nationalized. Freedom of the press, religion, and assembly were strictly curtailed. The head of the Roman Catholic Church, Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty, was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Forced industrialization and land collectivization soon led to serious economic difficulties, which reached crisis proportions by mid-1953, the year Stalin died. The new Soviet leaders blamed Rakosi for Hungary's economic situation and began a more flexible policy called the "New Course." Imre Nagy replaced Rakosi as prime minister in 1953 and repudiated much of Rakosi's economic program of forced collectivization and heavy industry. He also ended political purges and freed thousands of political prisoners. However, the economic situation continued to deteriorate, and Rakosi succeeded in disrupting the reforms and in forcing Nagy from power in 1955 for "right-wing revisionism." Hungary joined the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact Treaty Organization the same year. Rakosi's attempt to restore Stalinist orthodoxy then foundered as increasing opposition developed within the party and among students and other organizations after Khrushchev's 1956 denunciation of Stalin. Fearing revolution, Moscow replaced Rakosi with his deputy, Erno Gero, in order to contain growing ideological and political ferment.

Pressure for change reached a climax on October 23, 1956, when security forces fired on Budapest students marching in support of Poland's confrontation with the Soviet Union. The ensuing battle quickly grew into a massive popular uprising. Gero called on Soviet troops to restore order on October 24. Fighting did not abate until the Central Committee named Imre Nagy as prime minister on October 25, and the next day Janos Kadar replaced Gero as party first secretary. Nagy dissolved the state security police, abolished the one-party system, promised free elections, and negotiated with the U.S.S.R. to withdraw its troops.

Faced with reports of new Soviet troops pouring into Hungary despite Soviet Ambassador Andropov's assurances to the contrary, on November 1 Nagy announced Hungary's neutrality and withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. He appealed to the United Nations and the Western powers for protection of its neutrality. Preoccupied with the Suez Crisis, the UN and the West failed to respond, and the Soviet Union launched a massive military attack on Hungary on November 3. Some 200,000 Hungarians fled to the West. Nagy and his colleagues took refuge in the Yugoslav Embassy. Kadar, after delivering an impassioned radio address on November 1 in support of "our glorious revolution" and vowing to fight the Russians with his bare hands if they attacked Hungary, defected from the Nagy cabinet; he fled to the Soviet Union and on November 4 announced the formation of a new government. He returned to Budapest and, with Soviet support, carried out severe reprisals; thousands of people were executed or imprisoned. Despite a guarantee of safe conduct, Nagy was arrested and deported to Romania. In June 1958, the government announced that Nagy and other former officials had been executed.

In the early 1960s, Kadar announced a new policy under the motto of "He who is not against us is with us." He declared a general amnesty, gradually curbed some of the excesses of the secret police, and introduced a relatively liberal cultural and economic course aimed at overcoming the post-1956 hostility toward him and his regime. In 1966, the Central Committee approved the "New Economic Mechanism," through which it sought to overcome the inefficiencies of central planning, increase productivity, make Hungary more competitive in world markets, and create prosperity to ensure political stability. However, the reform was not as comprehensive as planned, and basic flaws of central planning produced economic stagnation. Over the next two decades of relative domestic quiet, Kadar's government responded to pressure for political and economic reform and to counterpressures from reform opponents, By the early 1980s, it had achieved some lasting economic reforms and limited political liberalization and pursued a foreign policy which encouraged more trade with the West. Nevertheless, the New Economic Mechanism led to mounting foreign debt incurred to share up unprofitable industries.

Hungary's transition to a Western-style parliamentary democracy was the first and the smoothest among the former Soviet bloc, inspired by a nationalism that long had encouraged Hungarians to control their own destiny. By 1987, activists within the party and bureaucracy and Budapest-based intellectuals were increasing pressure for change. Some of these became reform socialists, while others began movements which were to develop into parties. Young liberals formed the Federation of Young Democrats (Fidesz); a core from the so-called Democratic Opposition formed the Association of Free Democrats (SZDSZ), and the neopopulist national opposition established the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF). Civic activism intensified to a level not seen since the 1956 revolution.

In 1988, Kadar was replaced as General Secretary of the MKP, and reform communist leader Imre Pozsgay was admitted to the Politburo. That same year, the Parliament adopted a "democracy package," which included trade union pluralism; freedom of association, assembly, and the press; a new electoral law; and a radical revision of the constitution, among others. A Central Committee plenum in February 1989 endorsed in principle the multiparty political system and the characterization of the October 1956 revolution as a "popular uprising," in the words of Pozsgay, whose reform movement had been gathering strength as communist party membership declined dramatically. Kadar's major political rivals then cooperated to move the country gradually to democracy. The Soviet Union reduced its involvement by signing an agreement in April 1989 to withdraw Soviet forces by June 1991.

National unity culminated in June 1989 as the country reburied Imre Nagy, his associates, and, symbolically, all other victims of the 1956 revolution. A national roundtable, comprising representatives of the new parties and some recreated old parties--such as the Smallholders and Social Democrats--the communist party, and different social groups, met in the late summer of 1989 to discuss major changes to the Hungarian constitution in preparation for free elections and the transition to a fully free and democratic political system.

In October 1989, the communist party convened its last congress and re-established itself as the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP). In a historic session an October 16-20, 1989, the Parliament adopted legislation providing for multiparty parliamentary elections and a direct presidential election. The legislation transformed Hungary from a people's republic into the Republic of Hungary; guaranteed human and civil rights; and created an institutional structure that ensures separation of powers among the judicial, executive, and legislative branches of government. But because the national roundtable agreement was the result of a compromise between communist and noncommunist parties and societal forces, the revised constitution still retained vestiges of the old order. It championed the "values of bourgeois democracy and democratic socialism" and gave equal status to public and private property. Such provisions were erased in 1990 as the need for compromise solutions was obviated by the poor performance of the MSZP in the first free elections.

The first free parliamentary election, held in May 1990, was a plebiscite of sorts on the communist past. The revitalized and reformed communists performed poorly despite having more than the usual advantages of an "incumbent" party. Populist, center-right, and liberal parties fared best, with the Democratic Forum (MDF) winning 43% of the vote and the Free Democrats (SZDSZ) capturing 24%. Under Prime Minister Jozsef Antall, the MDF formed a center-right coalition government with the Independent Smallholders' Party (FKGP) and the Christian Democratic People's Party (KDNP) to command a 60% majority in the parliament. Parliamentary opposition parties included SZDSZ, the Socialists (MSZP), and the Alliance of Young Democrats (Fidesz). Peter Boross succeeded as Prime Minister after Antall died in December 1993. Thc Antall/Boross coalition governments achieved a reasonably well-functioning parliamentary democracy and laid the foundation for a free market economy.

In May 1994, the socialists came back to win a plurality of votes and 54% of the seats after an election campaign focused largely on economic issues and the substantial decline in living standards since 1990. A heavy turnout of voters swept away the right-of-center coalition but soundly rejected extremists on both right and left. Despite its neocommunist pedigree, the MSZP continued economic reforms and privatization, adopting a painful but necessary policy of fiscal austerity (the "Bokros plan") in 1995. The government pursued a foreign policy of integration with Euro-Atlantic institutions and reconciliation with neighboring countries. But neither an invitation to join NATO nor improving economic indicators guaranteed the MSZP's re-election; dissatisfaction with the pace of economic recovery, rising crime, and cases of government corruption convinced voters to propel center-right parties into power following national elections in May 1998. The Federation of Young Democrats (renamed Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Party (MPP) in 1995) captured a plurality of parliamentary seats and forged a coalition with the Smallholders and the Democratic Forum. The new government, headed by 35-year-old Prime Minister Viktor Organ, promised to stimulate faster growth, curb inflation, and lower taxes. Although the Orban administration also pledged continuity in foreign policy, and continued to pursue Euro-Atlantic integration as its first priority, it was a more vocal advocate of minority rights for ethnic Hungarians abroad than the previous government. In April 2002, the country voted to return the MSZP-Free Democrat coalition back into power. The new government, led by Prime Minister Peter Medgyessy, has a very slim majority in Parliament following the closest elections of the post-communist era.

As with the constitutions of the other Warsaw Pact countries, Hungary's Constitution grants rights to citizens but qualifies these rights so that they are meaningless. For example, Chapter VII, Article 64 of the Constitution gives citizens freedom of speech, press, and assembly, yet Section 54 states that citizens' rights "shall be exercised in accordance with the interests of socialism and the people" and that these rights "shall be inseparable from the fulfillment of the duties of citizens."

Nevertheless, from the 1970s well into the 1980s Hungarians had a wider latitude to criticize their government than did other East Europeans. But most Hungarians developed a "self-censorship" in which they avoided publicly discussing such sensitive topics as one-party rule and Hungary's relations with the Soviet Union and the other Warsaw Pact countries. Hungarians thus generally avoided problems with the state, while the state gave the appearance of tolerating dissent.

The development of samizdat in the early 1980s provoked a severe government reaction. In June 1982, several samizdat editors were subjected to police surveillance, and later in the year one was fined 4,000 forints, about the average wage for one month at that time, for publishing without official permission. In the following months, the police began to subject others associated with samizdat to both "light" measures (denial of permission to travel abroad, periodic house searches, detention, fines, or employment difficulties) to those of outright oppression (beatings or imprisonment). The regime even used psychiatric methods such as closed wards and electric shock therapy against dissidents. In 1987 dissidents were still subject to house searches, and in 1988 they were still denied passports.

To stop the tide of unofficial publishing, the government passed Decree 49/1984 (XI.21), which required that all duplicating machines and photocopiers be registered with the state, and Decree 4/1985 (VII20), which allowed police surveillance and even expulsion from the country for those persons whose political beliefs the government considered a danger to the Hungarian People's Republic, its social order, or public security. The authorities also punished official publishers when magazines touched upon taboo subjects. For example, in in 1983 the editor of Mozgo Vilag (World in Motion) lost his job for defying parlty directives. In 1986 the editors of Tiszataj (Tisza Country) were ordered to resign because of articles in their journal describing the horrible situation of Hungarians living in Romania.

Rock musicians also felt the state's wrath when their music did not meet official approval. During the mid-1980s, the Committee of Hungarian Radio censored records and songs because they were not "optimistic enough" or because they referred to drugs or to "red, white, and green" (the colors of the precommunist Hungarian flag).

Unauthorized street demonstrations were also harshly punished in the mid-1980s. In 1986 the police brutally broke up a demonstration held on March 15 to commemorate Hungary's declaration of independence from the Habsburg Empire in 1848. Unofficial peace and environmental groups were also harassed when attempting to meet publicly.

However, political reforms of the late 1980s softened the government's view of dissent, although its behavior remained ambiguous. In October 1988, street demonstrations commemorating the revolution were tolerated, and a relatively free press arose. The government spoke openly about liberalizing its passport law. Yet a Miskolc court in 1988 handed an elderly, disabled pensioner a one-and-a-half-year suspended sentence for writing an open letter to the HSWP in which he criticized "domestic conditions and certain leaders." Legal sanctions resulting from involvement in the Revolution of 1956 were lifted for twelve people but remained for another fifty-four.

Hence, as of 1989 the government's record on dissent, as with other aspects of the reform of the national security system, was mixed. To be sure, regime leaders repeatedly announced their intent to reform, and, indeed, many important steps were taken in that direction. But as Hungarian dissident Miklos Haraszti reminded his audience in 1989, Hungary was still "a country with powerful bureaucrats, with the same armed forces, and with a political police."

Unfortunately, few English-language sources deal with the past and present Hungarian military. English-language sources for Hungarian military history are almost nonexistent outside of the few standard surveys of Hungarian history, such as Denis Sinor's History of Hungary. A notable exception is Bela K. Kiraly's Hungary in the Late Eighteenth Century, which sets forth detailed information about the Hungarian-Habsburg military structure of that time. Peter Weiss's "The Hungarian Armed Forces Today" provided the most current information at the time of this writing. An excellent overview of the HPA since World War II is given by Ivan Volgyes in his article "Hungary." F. Rubin's "The Hungarian People's Army" is also useful but dated. For information about the HPA's force strengths and weaponry, no source is better than the International Institute for Strategic Studies annual The Military Balance. Radio Free Europe occasionally produces articles that treat Hungarian military matters. Some translations produced by the Joint Publications Research Service and the Foreign Broadcast Information Service concern questions of Hungary's national security.

Despite war, depression, revolution, foreign occupation, and periods of near chaos, Hungary's economy has advanced in the twentieth century from a near-feudal state to a middle-level stage of industrial development. The economic system has undergone dramatic change since 1968, evolving from a Soviet-type "command" economy, in which government planners in Budapest dictated much of the country's economic behavior, into a hybrid that combined social ownership of the means of production with a stock exchange, central planning with aspects of a free market, and government intervention with a measure of enterprise autonomy and some private enterprise. After Hungary's failed popular revolution against communist rule in 1956, the government opted to foster domestic tranquility and legitimize control by the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party by steadily improving the Hungarians' standard of living through economic growth.

For several reasons, the Hungarian economy can grow only if its factories and farms become more efficient and competitive. First, except for excess workers in existing enterprises, Hungary no longer has an untapped labor pool, such as the one that existed after World War II in the female and peasant populations. Second, the country has a paucity of natural resources, and imports of raw materials have become more costly for Hungary on both Western and Council for Mutual Economic Assistance markets. Third, Hungary can pay for imports of raw materials and efficiency-improving Western technology only by exporting goods whose quality and price are competitive in the world market.

Since 1968 the government has launched two rounds of economic reform, seeking to boost efficiency and competitiveness. The first was the New Economic Mechanism, introduced in 1968, in which the government abolished universal compulsory planning, granted enterprises greater autonomy, and unleashed some market forces. The program stalled within four years, but a burgeoning balance of trade deficit, slumping performance, deteriorating terms of trade, and other problems prompted the leadership to start the reform process anew in the late 1970s. Since then the government has streamlined its ministries, dismantled some huge enterprises and trusts, stimulated the growth of small and private firms, implemented a competitive pricing system, decentralized foreign trade, created small stock and bond markets, enacted a bankruptcy law, carried out banking reform, and levied and personal-income taxes.

In the late 1980s, a burdensome foreign debt, inefficient enterprises, raw-material supply problems, and stiffer competition in the world market were just a few of the problems facing the economy. The country's leaders had to improve Hungary's convertible-currency trade balance significantly in order to import the technology and raw materials necessary for further growth. At the same time, they had to maintain or improve domestic living standards and hold down unemployment and domestic inflation. The conjunction of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev's program of restructuring in the Soviet Union and Janos Kadar's replacement as party general secretary by Karoly Grosz in Hungary greatly enhanced the chances that the government would try to achieve further economic progress by implementing even more dramatic reforms.

Although Western observers agreed that Hungary had the most accurate and open reporting of economic statistics in the communist world, they warned against accepting those data at face value. Economists in communist and noncommunist countries used different statistical concepts and procedures that produced differing images of Hungary's economic system. Hungarian and foreign analysts also complained that political expedience had sometimes tainted Hungary's official statistics.

Hungary continues to demonstrate strong economic growth and to work toward accession to the European Union. The private sector accounts for over 80% of GDP. Foreign ownership of and investment in Hungarian firms is widespread, with cumulative foreign direct investment totaling more than $23 billion since 1989. Hungarian sovereign debt was upgraded in 2000 to the second-highest rating among all the Central European transition economies. Inflation and unemployment - both priority concerns in 2001 - have declined substantially. Economic reform measures such as health care reform, tax reform, and local government financing have not yet been addressed by the ORBAN government.

The Hungarian economy prior to WWII was primarily oriented toward agriculture and smallscale manufacturing. Hungary's strategic position in Europe and its relative lack of natural resources also have dictated a traditional reliance on foreign trade. In the early 1950s, the communist government forced rapid industrialization after the standard Stalinist pattern in an effort to encourage a more self-sufficient economy. Most economic activity was conducted by state-owned enterprises or cooperatives and state farms. In 1968, Stalinist self-sufficiency was replaced by the "New Economic Mechanism," which reopened Hungary to foreign trade, gave limited freedom to the workings of the market, and allowed a limited number of small businesses to operate in the services sector.

Although Hungary enjoyed one of the most liberal and economically advanced economies of the former Eastern bloc, both agriculture and industry began to suffer from a lack of investment in the 1970s, and Hungary's net foreign debt rose significantly--from $1 billion in 1973 to $15 billion in 1993--due largely to consumer subsidies and unprofitable state enterprises. In the face of economic stagnation, Hungary opted to try further liberalization by passing a joint venture law, enstating an income tax, and joining the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. By 1988, Hungary had developed a two-tier banking system and had enacted significant corporate legislation which paved the way for the ambitious market-oriented reforms of the post-communist years.

The Antall government of 1990-94 began market reforms with price and trade liberation measures, a revamped tax system, and a nascent market-based banking system. By 1994, however, the costs of government overspending and hesitant privatization had become clearly visible. Cuts in consumer subsidies led to increases in the price of food, medicine, transportation services, and energy. Reduced exports to the former Soviet bloc and shrinking industrial output contributed to a sharp decline in GDP, falling 18% from 1990 to 1993.

Unemployment rose rapidly--to about 12% in 1993. The external debt burden, one of the highest in Europe, reached 250% of annual export earnings, while the budget and current account deficits approached 10% of GDP. In March 1995, the government of Prime Minister Gyula Horn implemented an austerity program, coupled with aggressive privatization of state-owned enterprises and an export-promoting exchange rate regime, to reduce indebtness, cut the current account deficit, and shrink public spending. By the end of 1997 the consolidated public sector deficit decreased to 4.6% of GDP-- with public sector spending falling from 62% of GDP to below 50%--the current account deficit was reduced to 2% of GDP, and government debt was paid down to 94% of annual export earnings.

These reforms and a massive infusion of foreign direct investment set Hungary on a path of high growth, falling inflation, and unemployment. Growth has averaged 4.5% since 1996; inflation fell from 28% to under 7%; and unemployment fell to under 6%, the envy of many EU countries. Eighty percent of GDP is now produced by the private sector, and foreign owners control 70% of financial institutions, 66% of industry, 90% of telecommunications, and 50% of the trading sector. Hungary is now one of Europe's fastest-growing and most open economies, deeply integrated into the European economy, and it is expected to be among the first new members of the EU--as early as 2004.

The Orban government, which has been in power since 1998, maintained the broad macroeconomic reforms of its predecessor. However, it did little to address structural problems in agriculture, health care, and the tax system. Under the slogan "economic patriotism," the government moved to increase the government's role in the economy; it brought to a halt the region's most effective privatization program and effectively renationalized the postal savings bank. In the run-up to elections in April 2002, the government increasingly used off-budget funds to circumvent public scrutiny and public procurement laws.

In 1995 Hungary's currency, the forint (HUF), became convertible for all current account transactions, and subsequent to OECD membership in 1996, for almost all capital account transactions as well. In 2001, the government lifted remaining currency controls and broadened the band around the exchange rate, allowing the forint to appreciate by more than 12% in a year. Hungary hopes to qualify for the Euro as soon as 2006. Prior to the change of regime in 1989, 65% of Hungary's trade was with Comecon countries. By the end of 1997, Hungary had shifted much of its trade to the West. Trade with EU countries and the OECD now comprises over 75% and 85% of the total, respectively. Germany is Hungary's single-most important trading partner. The United States has become Hungary's sixth-largest export market, while Hungary is ranked as the 72d largest export market for the United States. Bilateral trade between the two countries increased 46% in 1997 to more than $1 billion. The United States has extended to Hungary most-favored-nation status, the Generalized System of Preferences, Overseas Private Investment Corporation insurance, and access to the Export/Import Bank.

Foreign investment was the key to Hungary's success. With about $23 billion in FDI since 1989, Hungary has been a leading destination for FDI in central and eastern Europe--including the former Soviet Union. Of this, more than $7 billion has come from U.S. companies. The largest U.S. investors include GE, General Motors, Coca-Cola, Ford, IBM, and Pepsico. Foreign companies modernized Hungary's industrial sector and created thousands of new, high-skilled, high-paying jobs. Foreign companies account for over 70% of Hungary's exports, 33% of GDP, and about one-quarter of new jobs.

The Hungarian people are descendants of the Magyars, an Asiatic tribe whose origins lie in what is today central Russia. The word Hungary appears to derive from a Slavicized form of the Turkic words on ogur, meaning "ten arrows," which may have referred to the number of Magyar tribes. Unlike most Europeans, Hungarians do not speak an Indo-European language. Hungarian is a member of the Finno-Ugric language family, which also includes such languages as Estonian and Finnish.

Particularly during the early years of communist rule, the churches had faced extensive harassment and persecution by the regime. Many clergy had been openly hostile to the new government at its inception. The new secular authorities, for their part, denounced such attitudes as traitorous, and they mistrusted the churches as a source of opposition.

The most protracted case of tension and open conflict involved the Roman Catholic Church. In 1945 the church lost its landed property in the first postwar land reform, which occurred before the communist takeover. Most Catholic religious orders (fifty-nine of a total of sixty-three groups) were dissolved in 1948, when religious schools were also taken over by the state. Most Catholic associations and clubs, which numbered about 4,000, were forced to disband. Imprisoned and prosecuted for political resistance to the communist regime were a number of clergy, most notably Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty, primate of the Catholic Church in Hungary. In 1950 about 2,500 monks and nuns, about one-quarter of the total in Hungary, were deported. Authorities banned sixty-four of sixty-eight functioning religious newspapers and journals. Although in 1950 the Catholic Church accepted an agreement with the state that forced church officials to take a loyalty oath to the Constitution, relations between the church and the state remained strained throughout the decade.

During the 1960s, the two sides gradually reached an accommodation. In 1964 the state concluded a major agreement with the Vatican, the first of its kind involving a communist state. The document ratified certain episcopal appointments already made by the church, although it did not settle Mindszenty's long- standing case. As before, the agreement mandated that certain individuals in positions in the church were obliged to take an oath of allegiance to the Constitution and the laws of the country. But this oath was to be binding only to the extent that the country's laws were not in opposition to the tenets of the Catholic faith. The church conceded the state's right to approve selection of high church officials. Under the agreement, the Hungarian Roman Catholic Church could staff its Papal Institute in Rome with priests endorsed by the government, and each year every diocese in the country would send a priest to Rome to attend the institute. For its part, the government promised not to interfere with the institute's work.

Following the agreement, many vacant church posts were filled. Gradually, the organizational structure of the church was reestablished, and congregations became active again. The church began to take a role in the ceremonial life of the country. Relations between church and state warmed particularly after 1974, when the Vatican removed Mindszenty from his office (in 1971 Mindszenty had received permission to leave the country after spending many years in the American embassy in Budapest, where he had fled to escape detention by the authorities). The new primate, Cardinal Laszlo Lekai, who held office from 1976 to 1986, sponsored a policy of "small steps," through which he sought to reconcile differences between church and state and enhance relations between the two through "quiet, peaceful dialogue." He urged Catholics to be loyal citizens of the state and simultaneously to seek personal and communal salvation through the church.

Evidence suggests that a serious falling away from religion among Catholics (especially a drop in attendance at church services) occurred only during the 1960s and 1970s, ironically during the period when the government no longer energetically persecuted the church. Some observers have suggested that in the 1950s the church earned popularity as an anticommunist institution because of widespread dissatisfaction with material, political, and cultural trends within the country. As conditions improved, the church no longer served as a focal point for the disaffected. Some Catholics, both lay and clerical, felt that Lekai, in his eagerness to smooth relations between church and state, went too far in compromising the church's position.

The Catholic Church of the 1980s had difficulty providing adequate services to all communities. Its clergymen were aging and decreasing in number. Whereas in 1950 the church had had 3,583 priests and 11,538 monks and nuns, in 1986 it had only about 2,600 priests and a mere 250 monks and nuns. It was clear by this time, however, that the church was reaping tangible benefits from its relationship with the state. For example, in the 1980s the Catholic orders of the Benedictines, the Franciscans, the Piarists, and Our Lady's School Sisters were again functioning in limited numbers. A new order of nuns, the Sisters of Our Lady of Hungary, received permission to organize in 1986. In the 1980s, the church had six seminaries for training priests and a theological academy in Budapest.

After the communist takeover, the historic Protestant churches became even more thoroughly integrated into the new state system than did the Catholic Church. They were not a source of organized dissent. The Reformed (Calvinist), Unitarian, and the Lutheran churches all reached accommodation with the government in the late 1940s (as did the small Greek Orthodox and the Jewish communities). These agreements guaranteed the Protestants the right to worship and brought about some financial support (contingent after 1949 on the loyalty oath). Some Protestant leaders praised the agreements as heralding a new era in which all religions would be treated equally. However, a number of Reformed clergy and followers became active supporters of the Revolution of 1956. After the Revolution failed, many of these people joined "free churches" (including the Baptist, Methodist, and Seventh-Day Adventist churches), which functioned apart from the historic Protestant churches.

In 1986, according to Western estimates, about 67.5 percent of the population was Roman Catholic, 20 percent was Reformed (Calvinist), 5 percent was unaffiliated, and 5 percent was Lutheran (its members were in particular the German and Slovak minorities but also included many ethnic Magyars). Other Christian denominations included Uniates, Orthodox, and various small Protestant groups, such as Baptists, Methodists, Seventh- Day Adventists, and Mormons. Most of these smaller groups were affiliated with the national Council of Free Churches and were dubbed free churches as a group. The country also had 65,000 to 100,000 practicing Jews. The remainder of the population did not subscribe to any religious creed or organization. Nor was any single church or religion particularly associated with the national identity in the popular mind, as was the Catholic Church in Poland.

Western observers concluded that although the country possessed about 5 million practicing believers, religion did not provide a viable alternative value system that could compete with the predominant secularism and materialism promoted both by the government and by trends within an increasingly modern society. Thus, religion was unlikely to become a vehicle for dissent as in Poland or, in a more limited way, in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

A noteworthy phenomenon of the early 1980s was the appearance of thousands of intensely active prayer and meditation groups within Catholic and Protestant congregations. Some of these groups came into conflict with the church hierarchies over military service and other aspects of cooperation with the government. The Constitution guarantees freedom of conscience and religion. Until 1989, however, these guarantees were severely circumscribed by the State Office for Church Affairs, which regulated the activities of the churches. On June 15, 1989, the government abolished this office. In its place, the government planned to establish a "National Church Council" that would act as a "consultative organization," not as an instrument for the control of the churches. In addition, the Ministry of Culture assumed responsibility for church affairs. Also in 1989, the government submitted for public debate new "Principles of a Law on Freedom of Conscience, the Right of Free Exercise of Religion, and Church Affairs." The document, prepared by representatives of the churches, banned discrimination against believers, acknowledged the churches as legal entities, and recognized their equality before the law. Yet in the late 1980s, the state's financial support of all major churches continued to give it considerable leverage in influencing church affairs.

Between 1945 and 1986, religious communities erected or repaired 306 Roman Catholic, 46 Calvinist (Reformed), 33 Lutheran, and 23 Uniate churches. Congregations of the free churches built 185 new structures, and the Jewish community built a new synagogue. The various denominations maintained their own modest publishing organs that produced newspapers, periodicals, and books. Occasionally, religious services were broadcast over radio. The various churches and denominations each supported (collectively, in the case of the free churches) at least one theological academy or college for the training of clergy. However, the number of students was small; 75 students graduated out of a total of 648 students enrolled in such institutions in 1987.

Hungary's legal system has been influenced by Roman law. The country's first written law code, compiled by Stephen Werboczy in 1514, codified the unwritten laws and customs that had existed up to that time. The Tripartitum, as this codification was called, was modified over the following centuries, but a written, formal law code was not officially published until 1878. This publication formed the basis of the Penal Code appearing in the early 1950s, but many articles remained unchanged until the entire code was republished in 1961.

The Penal Code and a decree on criminal procedures that appeared in 1972 incorporated constitutional revisions made at that time. Both the code and the decree reflected the subordination of the legal system to the state, and harsher penalties were meted out for crimes against the state and state property than for crimes against the person and private property. The Penal Code was revised in late 1978 and again in September 1989. The latest revision, which still required the approval of the National Assembly as of September 1989, abolished the use of the death penalty for crimes against the state.

Hungary's system of justice did not subscribe to the adversary system; neither did it recognize common law or precedent. The prosecutor in a Hungarian court was responsible for presenting all the evidence, both for and against the defendant. Defendants had the right to legal counsel, who attempted to ensure that the prosecutor's presentation of the case was unbiased. Judges were bound by the law as written, not by the decisions of other judges. The judge's interpretation applied only to the specific case; it set no precedent for other cases.

Crimes against both people and property soared during the 1980s. Violent crime, which also increased dramatically, was disproportionately committed by Gypsies. Gypsies made up about 4.7 percent of the population, but they numbered 54 percent of those persons convicted of murder and rape and 49 percent of those convicted of robbery.

Criminal offenses against the state and private individuals cost the economy nearly US$50 million in 1988, or 0.5 percent of the country's annual budget. Losses from criminal offenses against private property doubled from 1987 to 1988. White-collar crime, especially bribery of office executives, also rose, and the country's efforts to increase the role of private enterprise led to a new type of criminal activity--money laundering.

By contrast, certain other types of activities formerly considered illegal by the state had become legal under new more tolerant laws. Thus, in the late 1980s liberalized passport and customs regulations reduced currency crimes by 25 percent and smuggling cases by 20 percent.

In the 1980s, the level of alcoholism in Hungary grew at the fastest rate in the world. In the 1950s, the communist regime considered alcoholism to be a "remnant of the past," but the increase in alcoholism over the years had forced the government to pay attention to this problem. The rapidly rising rate of alcohol consumption was fueled by an increasing number of women and youth with drinking problems. About 120,000 children lived in families in which one or both parents were heavy drinkers, and reports surfaced of youth gangs drinking in Budapest subway stations.

However, the government's data showed that at least in the workplace the problem of alcoholism was diminishing, rather than increasing. Surveys taken between 1985 and 1987 showed that drunkenness in the workplace dropped each year: from 9.1 percent in 1985, to 3.7 percent in 1986, and to 2.2 percent in 1987. Nevertheless, alcohol, rather than controlled substances, was related to virtually all of the crimes committed under the influence of any type of drug. In the first eight months of 1988, more than 18,500 crimes were committed under the influence of alcohol, while 37 crimes were committed under the influence of hard drugs (heroin and cocaine) and 84 under the influence of drug substitutes.

According to the Ministry of Interior, although hard drugs were shipped through Hungary, they did not appear to be a serious problem for Hungarian society. In the late 1980s, Ministry of Interior statistics cited only forty-five to fifty prosecutions per year for narcotics violations. Nevertheless, the use of hard drugs did appear to be rising.

The use of drug substitutes or the abuse of prescription drugs, however, caused the government serious concern. Abusers obtained opium-based and other drugs from hospitals, pharmacies, and drug factories by stealing, by forging prescriptions, or by buying drugs from staff looking for extra money. Glue sniffing was also a problem, especially for children aged seven to fifteen. In the late 1980s, the press admitted that the country possibly had 50,000 drug addicts but did not mention the drugs responsible for addiction.

Before 1984 the government had denied the existence of a drug problem, but since then the subject has received wide public discussion. In the late 1980s, laws against the use of controlled substances were flexible and gave judges the ability to adjust sentences according to the quantity of the drug involved and the age of the seller. Those persons in possession of "excessive amounts" could receive up to an eight-year prison term.

Today, the crime rate in Hungary is moderate compared to other industrialized countries. An analysis was done using INTERPOL data for Hungary. For purpose of comparison, data were drawn for the seven offenses used to compute the United States FBI's index of crime. Index offenses include murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft. The combined total of these offenses constitutes the Index used for trend calculation purposes. Hungary will be compared with Japan (country with a low crime rate) and USA (country with a high crime rate). According to the INTERPOL data, for murder, the rate in 2001 was 4.01 per 100,000 population for Hungary, 1.10 for Japan, and 5.61 for USA. For rape, the rate in 2001 was 3.20 for Hungary, compared with 1.78 for Japan and 31.77 for USA. For robbery, the rate in 2001 was 33.04 for Hungary, 4.08 for Japan, and 148.50 for USA. For aggravated assault, the rate in 2001 was 72.29 for Hungary, 23.78 for Japan, and 318.55 for USA. For burglary, the rate in 2001 was 681.99 for Hungary, 233.60 for Japan, and 740.80 for USA. The rate of larceny for 2001 was 1503.27 for Hungary, 1401.26 for Japan, and 2484.64 for USA. The rate for motor vehicle theft in 2001 was 92.41 for Hungary, compared with 44.28 for Japan and 430.64 for USA. The rate for all index offenses combined was 2390.21 for Hungary, compared with 1709.88 for Japan and 4160.51 for USA. (Note that Japan data are for year 2000)

Between 1995 and 2001, according to INTERPOL data, the rate of murder increased from 3.95 to 4.01 per 100,000 population, an increase of 1.5%. The rate for rape decreased from 4.06 to 3.20, a decrease of 21.2%. The rate of robbery increased from 25.85 to 33.04, an increase of 27.8%. The rate for aggravated assault decreased from 78.52 to 72.29, a decrease of 7.9%. The rate for burglary decreased from 799.78 to 681.99, a decrease of 14.7%. The rate of larceny increased from 1469.29 to 1503.27, an increase of 2.3%. The rate of motor vehicle theft increased from 52.20 to 92.41, and increase of 77%. The rate of total index offenses decreased from 2433.65 to 2390.21, a decrease of 1.8%.

Hungary's legal system has been influenced by Roman law. The country's first written law code, compiled by Stephen Werboczy in 1514, codified the unwritten laws and customs that had existed up to that time. The Tripartitum, as this codification was called, was modified over the following centuries, but a written, formal law code was not officially published until 1878. This publication formed the basis of the Penal Code appearing in the early 1950s, but many articles remained unchanged until the entire code was republished in 1961.

Hungary's system of justice did not subscribe to the adversary system; neither did it recognize common law or precedent The prosecutor in a Hungarian court was responsible for presenting all the evidence, both for and against the defendant. Defendants had the right to legal counsel, who attempted to ensure that the prosecutor's presentation of the case was unbiased. Judges were bound by the law as written, not by the decisions of other judges. The judge's interpretation applied only to the specific case; it set no precedent for other cases.

Hungary's first two foreign kings, Charles Robert and Louis I of the House of Anjou, ruled during one of the most glorious periods in the country's history. Central Europe was at peace, and Hungary and its neighbors prospered. Charles Robert (1308-42) won the protracted succession struggle after Andrew III's death. An Árpad descendant in the female line, Charles Robert was crowned as a child and raised in Hungary. He reestablished the crown's authority by ousting disloyal magnates and distributing their estates to his supporters. Charles Robert then ordered the magnates to recruit and equip small private armies called banderia. Charles Robert ruled by decree and convened the Diet only to announce his decisions. Dynastic marriages linked his family with the ruling families of Naples and Poland and heightened Hungary's standing abroad. Under Charles Robert, the crown regained control of Hungary's mines, and in the next two centuries the mines produced more than a third of Europe's gold and a quarter of its silver. Charles Robert also introduced tax reforms and a stable currency. Charles Robert's son and successor Louis I (1342-82) maintained the strong central authority Charles Robert had amassed. In 1351 Louis issued a decree that reconfirmed the Golden Bull, erased all legal distinctions between the lesser nobles and the magnates, standardized the serfs' obligations, and barred the serfs from leaving the lesser nobles' farms to seek better opportunities on the magnates' estates. The decree also established the entail system. Hungary's economy continued to flourish during Louis's reign. Gold and other precious metals poured from the country's mines and enriched the royal treasury, foreign trade increased, new towns and villages arose, and craftsmen formed guilds. The prosperity fueled a surge in cultural activity, and Louis promoted the illumination of manuscripts and in 1367 founded Hungary's first university. Abroad, however, Louis fought several costly wars and wasted time, funds, and lives in failed attempts to gain for his nephew the throne of Naples. While Louis was engaged in these activates, the Turks made their initial inroads into the Balkans. Louis became king of Poland in 1370 and ruled the two countries for twelve years.

Sigismund (1387-37), Louis's son-in-law, won a bitter struggle for the throne after Louis died in 1382. Under Sigismund, Hungary's fortunes began to decline. Many Hungarian nobles despised Sigismund for his cruelty during the succession struggle, his long absences, and his costly foreign wars. In 1401 disgruntled nobles temporarily imprisoned the king. In 1403 another group crowned an anti-king, who failed to solidify his power but succeeded in selling Dalmatia to Venice. Sigismund failed to reclaim the territory. Sigismund became the Holy Roman Emperor in 1410 and king of Bohemia in 1419, thus requiring him to spend long periods abroad and enabling Hungary's magnates to acquire unprecedented power. In response, Sigismund created the office of palatine to rule the country in his stead. Like earlier Hungarian kings, Sigismund elevated his supporters to magnate status and sold off crown lands to meet burgeoning expenses. Although Hungary's economy continued to flourish, Sigismund's expenses outstripped his income. He bolstered royal revenues by increasing the serfs' taxes and requiring cash payment. Social turmoil erupted late in Sigismund's reign as a result of the heavier taxes and renewed magnate pressure on the lesser nobles. Hungary's first peasant revolt erupted when a Transylvanian bishop ordered peasants to pay tithes in coin rather than in kind. The revolt was quickly checked, but it prompted Transylvania's Szekel, Magyar, and German nobles to form the Union of Three Nations, which was an effort to defend their privileges against any power except that of the king.

Additional turmoil erupted when the Ottoman Turks expanded their empire into the Balkans. They crossed the Bosporus Straits in 1352, subdued Bulgaria in 1388, and defeated the Serbs at Kosovo Polje in 1389. Sigismund led a crusade against them in 1396, but the Ottomans routed his forces at Nicopolis, and he barely escaped with his life. Tamerlane's invasion of Anatolia in 1402-03 slowed the Turks' progress for several decades, but in 1437 Sultan Murad prepared to invade Hungary. Sigismund died the same year, and Hungary's next two kings, Albrecht V of Austria (1437-39) and Wladyslaw III of Poland (1439-44), who was known in Hungary as Ulaszlo I, both died during campaigns against the Turks.

After Ulaszlo, Hungary's nobles chose an infant king, Laszlo V, and a regent, Janos Hunyadi, to rule the country until Laszlo V came of age. The son of a lesser nobleman of the Vlach tribe, Hunyadi rose to become a general, Transylvania's military governor, one of Hungary's largest landowners, and a war hero. He used his personal wealth and the support of the lesser nobles to win the regency and overcome the opposition of the magnates. Hunyadi then established a mercenary army funded by the first tax ever imposed on Hungary's nobles. He defeated the Ottoman forces in Transylvania in 1442 and broke their hold on Serbia in 1443, only to be routed at Varna (where Laszlo V himself perished) a year later. In 1456, when the Turkish army besieged Belgrade, Hunyadi defeated it in his greatest and final victory. Hunyadi died of the plague soon after.

Some magnates resented Hunyadi for his popularity as well as for the taxes he imposed, and they feared that his sons might seize the throne from Laszlo. They coaxed the sons to return to Laszlo's court, where Hunyadi's elder son was beheaded. His younger son, Matyas, was imprisoned in Bohemia. However, lesser nobles loyal to Matyas soon expelled Laszlo. After Laszlo's death abroad, they paid ransom for Matyas, met him on the frozen Danube River, and proclaimed him king. Known as Matyas Corvinus (1458-90), he was, with one possible exception (Janos Zapolyai), the last Hungarian king to rule the country.

Although Matyas regularly convened the Diet and expanded the lesser nobles' powers in the counties, he exercised absolute rule over Hungary by means of a secular bureaucracy. Matyas enlisted 30,000 foreign mercenaries in his standing army and built a network of fortresses along Hungary's southern frontier, but he did not pursue his father's aggressive anti-Turkish policy. Instead, Matyas launched unpopular attacks on Bohemia, Poland, and Austria, pursuing an ambition to become Holy Roman Emperor and arguing that he was trying to forge a unified Western alliance strong enough to expel the Turks from Europe. He eliminated tax exemptions and raised the serfs' obligations to the crown to fund his court and the military. The magnates complained that these measures reduced their incomes, but despite the stiffer obligations, the serfs considered Matyas a just ruler because he protected them from excessive demands and other abuses by the magnates. He also reformed Hungary's legal system and promoted the growth of Hungary's towns. Matyas was a true renaissance man and made his court a center of humanist culture; under his rule, Hungary's first books were printed and its second university was established. Matyas' library, the Corvina, was famous throughout Europe. In his quest for the imperial throne, Matyas eventually moved to Vienna, where he died in 1490.

In 1989 the Ministry of Interior was responsible for public order, public safety, internal security, and, since the beginning of 1988, public administration. The ministry controlled the armed security organizations in the country--the National Police, the Security Police, and the Border Guard--but not the Workers' Guard, which was subject directly to the HSWP. The ministry was also responsible for such diverse tasks as fire prevention and passport control.

In the late 1980s, Hungary's 15,000 member Security Police was controlled by the Ministry of Interior. However, unique among Warsaw Pact countries, Hungary lacked a uniformed security police force. Such a force--the AVO--had existed but was disbanded in October 1956. Given the vehemence with which the public hated the AVO and associated it with the Stalinist terror, the Kadar regime saw fit not to revive it, even under a different name. Nevertheless, until the late 1980s the Security Police continued to harass and arrest those persons deemed to be political enemies.

The reform of the political system during the second half of the 1980s appeared to have also affected the Security Police. In an interview on Hungarian television in July 1989, Minister of Interior Horvath claimed that the Security Police no longer viewed the domestic opposition as political enemies, an image that had become "obsolete" in a multiparty system. He condemned previous Security Police actions, such as harassing and detaining known dissidents before national holidays as "a bad reflex action of a different type of power structure." Horvath stressed that the Security Police did have a legitimate intelligence and counterintelligence function but was not an organization "placed above the citizens."

The public police forces performed routine police duties throughout the country. Although they operated within local jurisdictions, they were centrally organized and controlled by the Ministry of Interior.

To become a public police officer, a candidate had to have finished general elementary school and, in theory, to have completed two ten-month training periods. However, most officers serving in 1989, according to the Ministry of Interior, did not have this kind of education. In the late 1980s, morale problems affected the police. Inflation had eaten away their salaries, and the crime increases had overburdened their work loads. In addition, policemen could not travel to the West. On July 5, 1989, policemen founded the Independent Policemen's Trade Union to protect their interests.

As Hungary inched toward democracy during the late 1980s the populace felt freer to criticize the police. The Ministry of Interior, in turn, felt obliged to publicize reforms. For example, in April 1989, the Federation of Young Democrats staged a sit-in in front of the headquarters of the Ministry of Interior. This organization was protesting the lenient sentences given by military courts to policemen who committed brutality. Federation members demanded that the minister of interior resign and that the ministry be removed from party control.

More surprising was the ministry's reaction to this criticism. In a press conference, a ministry spokesperson claimed that the "direct supervision" of the ministry had indeed been transferred to the government. During the same month, a ministry spokesperson condemned the acts of some police officers who had abused their authority and engaged in "impermissible activities." In the late 1980s, the ministry appeared to be concerned with its public image and claimed to be investigating "all allegations" of unlawful or improper activities by its agents. In a rather euphemistic but telling statement, Minister of Interior Horvath proclaimed in August 1989 that "protection of the public order [must] be provided according to European standards in the late 20th century."

The internal and external civilian security services reported directly to a State Secretary in the Prime Minister's Office, and the police reported to the Interior Minister.  Civilian authorities maintained effective control of the security forces, and the Government investigated and charged police for human rights violations. Some police committed human rights abuses during the year.

There were no reports of the arbitrary or unlawful deprivation of life committed by the Government or its agents.

The law prohibits such practices; however, police abuses continued, including the excessive use of force, beatings of suspects, and harassment.  Police continued to harass and physically abuse Roma and foreign nationals.

The law prohibits such actions and the Government generally respects these prohibitions in practice.  The law provides that the prosecutor's office may issue search warrants.  Police must carry out searches of private residences in the presence of two witnesses and must prepare a written inventory of items removed from the premises.  Wiretapping, which may be done for national security reasons and for legitimate criminal investigations, requires a court's permission.  These provisions appear to be observed in practice. 

The Workers' Guard, a paramilitary organization directly controlled by the HSWP, claimed to have 60,000 members in 1988. Possessing only small arms, its mission was officially limited to protecting the population and state property in times of war or unrest. In fact, the Workers' Guard assisted the National Police and army during events that required crowd control. The guard wore its own distinctive gray uniform.

Directly controlled by a permanent department of the HSWP's Central Committee, the Workers' Guard was, in effect, the party's private army, and the overwhelming majority of the guard were party members. Founded in 1957 shortly after the revolution, this organization became the chief protector of the newly formed Kadar regime.

In June 1989, the government announced that in the future it, not the party, would have control over the Workers' Guard and that many of the functions of this paramilitary organization would be eliminated. An interministerial committee of the government was formed to examine the mission and activities of the guard and perhaps even to rename it.

The Constitution prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention, and the Government generally observed these prohibitions.

The law requires that police obtain warrants to place an individual under arrest. Police must inform suspects upon arrest of the charges against them, but may hold detainees for a maximum of 72 hours before filing charges. The law requires that all suspects be allowed access to counsel prior to questioning and throughout all subsequent proceedings, and that the authorities provide counsel for juveniles, the indigent, and persons with mental disabilities; however, credible reports suggested that that police did not always allow access to counsel, particularly for persons accused of minor crimes. There was no system of bail; however, a law allows some foreigners to make a financial deposit to the courts allowing them to reside abroad during their court case. This provision of the law was used infrequently. The lack of a bail system gives a great deal of discretionary authority to judges.

Pretrial detention, based on a warrant issued by a judge, initially is limited to 1 year while criminal investigations are in progress; it may be extended indefinitely on the prosecutor's motion, provided that a judge concurs. The Government may detain individuals in pretrial detention only after charges are brought. Not all suspects were remanded to detention centers pending trial. The law stipulates that authorities can request pretrial detention in cases when it is likely the suspect will flee, when the gravity of the charges warrant detention, and when the release of the suspect would endanger the investigation.

The Prosecutor General's Office reported that the average length of pretrial detention during the first 6 months of the year was 116 days, compared with 108 days in 2001, although nearly 10 percent of detainees were held for periods ranging from 8 to 12 months. Aliens usually were held until their trials, since they were considered likely to flee the country. Roma alleged that they were kept in pretrial detention longer and more frequently than non-Roma (see Section 1.e.). The law provides for compensation if a detainee or victim of forced medical treatment is released for lack of evidence, but the procedure rarely was exercised, since detainees must undertake a complicated legal procedure to pursue such claims. The Minister of Justice, on behalf of the State, decides upon compensation. The amount is decided on a case by case basis, and may cover the costs of the trial, attorney's fees, lost wages, and some miscellaneous sums.

The law permits police to hold suspects in public security detention (PSD) under certain circumstances, including when a suspect has no identity papers, when blood or urine tests must be performed to determine blood alcohol content, or when a suspect continues to commit a misdemeanor offense in spite of a prior warning. Suspects may be held in PSD for up to 24 hours. Such detainees were not always informed of the charges against them, because such periods of "short" detention were not defined as "criminal detention" and therefore were not considered covered by the Criminal Code. However, there were no reports that police abused these rights in practice.

The law does not provide for forced exile, and the Government did not employ it.

Like other Marxist-Leninist regimes in the late 1980s, Hungary lacked an independent judiciary. The Supreme Court, together with a system of lower courts on the county and district levels, had few duties and little power. The prosecutor general and his subordinates on the local levels represented the state in prosecuting persons accused of a crime. However, the law also obligated these officials to protect the rights of the citizenry and ensure a fair trial for the accused.

In 1989 the Constitutional Law Council had the power to monitor constitutional life in Hungary, note possible violations of the Constitution, and initiate procedures to eliminate laws, decrees, and regulations that failed to conform to the Constitution. The National Assembly elected the fifteen members of the Constitutional Law Council, which included National Assembly delegates, the minister of justice, the president of the Supreme Court, the prosecutor general, and the chairman of the People's Control Committee. The council was subordinate to the National Assembly and, unlike the United States Supreme Court, was not an independent body for judicial review.

In amending the Constitution to establish the Constitutional Law Council in 1983, the regime responded to demands of the public to promote the rule of law and to requests of constitutional lawyers to systematize laws, decrees, and regulations promulgated by the ministries. The council used reports of violations from "reliable entities," which included government agencies, the National Assembly, and the county and district councils. If the Constitutional Law Council found that a law, decree, or regulation violated the Constitution, the council mediated between the body that lodged the complaint and the government organ that issued the law, decree, or regulation. The council could suspend acts it deemed unconstitutional, but it could not repeal them.

Individual citizens lacked direct access to the Constitutional Law Council. In fact, only government organs in a position to violate the Constitution--the National Assembly, the Presidential Council, the ministries, and the county and district councils--had the right to initiate inquiries by this body. If a person submitted a case to the Constitutional Law Council, the council referred that person to the government organ best able to represent the case. However, authorized organs represented only their own viewpoints, not those of individuals. Furthermore, no religious body had access to the council; therefore, issues concerning church-state relations never appeared for review. In effect, the Constitutional Law Council was answerable only to governing organs, not to the Hungarian people.

The Constitution provides for an independent judiciary, and the Government generally respects this provision in practice.

Under the Constitution, the courts are responsible for the administration of justice, with the Supreme Court exercising control over the operations and judicial procedure of all other courts.  There are three levels of courts.  Original jurisdiction in most matters rests with the local courts.  Appeals of their rulings may be made to the county courts or to the Budapest municipal court, which have original jurisdiction in other matters.  The Supreme Court is the final court of appeal, while the Constitutional Court is the final court on constitutional matters.  Appeals of decisions by military courts also may be heard by the Supreme Court.

The Constitutional Court is charged with reviewing the constitutionality of laws and statutes brought before it as well as the compliance of these laws with international treaties that the Government has ratified.  Parliament elects, with a two-thirds majority, the 11 members of the Constitutional Court, who serve 9-year terms.  In theory their mandates may be renewed, but no judge has been reelected.  The judges elect the president of the Constitutional Court from among themselves by secret ballot.  Citizens may appeal to the Constitutional Court directly if they believe that their constitutional rights have been violated.  The Constitutional Court is required to address every petition it receives; however, no deadline is specified for the Court to render a decision.  Consequently a considerable backlog of cases has developed.  No judge or member of the Supreme or Constitutional Courts may belong to a political party, or a trade union.  Members of the Constitutional and Supreme Courts also may not be members of Parliament, or be employed in local government.  The retirement age of the Constitutional Court judges is 70 years.

A National Judicial Council nominates judicial appointees other than the Constitutional Court and oversees the judicial budget process.

The law provides for the right to a fair trial, and an independent judiciary generally enforces this right.  Trials are public, but in selected cases, judges may agree to a closed trial to protect the accused or the crime victim, such as in some rape cases.  Judicial proceedings generally are investigative rather than adversarial in nature.  Defendants are entitled to counsel during all phases of criminal proceedings and are presumed innocent until proven guilty.  Counsel is appointed for indigent clients, but the public defender system provides generally substandard service.  There is no public defender's office; private attorneys may or may not choose to serve in this capacity.  Public defenders are paid poorly--less than $5 (1,000 HUF) for the first hour of the trial and less than $2.50 (500 HUF) for each additional hour--and do not give indigent defendants priority.  Lawyers often meet indigent clients for the first time at trial.

Judicial proceedings vary in length and delays of several months to a year are common prior to the commencement of trials.  Cases on appeal may remain pending before the courts for indefinite periods, during which time defendants are held in detention.  There is no jury system; judges are the final arbiters.  Recent changes to the law, which are scheduled to take effect in 2003, would limit the length of judicial proceedings to 3 years.

Under the new Criminal Procedure Law, which is scheduled to take effect in 2003, prosecutors are to have greater influence over their cases.  Plea bargaining, which is known as a trial waiver, is a tool available to prosecutors.  Police believe that plea bargaining may be an important weapon in the fight against organized crime.

From 1949 to 1961, the penal system consisted of labor or internment camps and prisons with three types of disciplinary regimes. By 1961 the regime claimed it had abolished the labor camps. A law eliminated these different regimes, but a new system containing four regimes has been instituted since. Confinement to penitentiaries was the most severe regime under the new system, while local jails provided the lightest. Prisoners sentenced to the two intermediate regimes were assigned to one of two different types of prisons. In 1975 the government introduced an additional regime for convicts who committed for the fourth time a violent crime carrying a sentence of more than one year.

In July 1989, a prisoner in the Vac Prison north of Budapest committed self-immolation, and several hundred of his fellow prisoners went on a hunger strike to protest the harshest possible regime. The government immediately promised to abolish this regime, thus affecting 282 male and 14 female prisoners.

In the late 1980s, the HPA possessed just one penal battalion, located in Nagyatad in Somogy County. Soldiers who had received seven-month to two-year sentences were sent there to perform manual labor, primarily for the HPA but often for the national economy. Alcohol played a part in two-thirds of crimes committed by soldiers. At least one-third of these crimes involved violence against superiors, insubordination, or draft dodging.

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) reported that prisons were overcrowded but generally met international standards. Their 2001 study stated that 5 percent of inmates in one detention facility had alleged mistreatment by prison guards, which included 49 cases of minor physical assault. The Military Prosecutor's Office, which has responsibility for such cases, declined to conduct an investigation and determined that no mistreatment had occurred. As of September, the prison and detention centers' population was 18,106 persons or 160 percent of capacity--an increase of 16.5 percent since 2000. Tougher maximum sentences contributed to the increase.

An estimated 63 percent of prisoners earned wages while in prison, either from work in prison or from work-release programs. The HHC reported that prisoners' wages were lower than those of non-prisoners, and also expressed concern that the period of time prisoners worked in custody did not count toward social security service time. Some programs allowed prisoners to spend weekends at home; there were sports facilities, radio and television, and libraries available in each penal institution. Prisoners could also attend training programs to assist in their eventual return to life outside of prison. Civic- and state-operated organizations, private foundations, charities, and churches assisted in the rehabilitation process.

The Government continued to expand the number of detention facilities, and a new prison was scheduled to open in 2003. Men and women were held separately; juveniles were held separately from adults; and pretrial detainees were held separately from convicted prisoners.

According to the United States State Department’s 2001 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, prisons are overcrowded but generally meet international standards according to the HHC who conducted a monitoring program that ended during the year.  In 1 detention facility the study found that 5 percent of inmates alleged mistreatment by prison guards, which included 49 cases of minor physical assault.  The Military Prosecutor's Office, which has responsibility for such cases, declined to conduct an investigation and simultaneously determined that no mistreatment had occurred.  As of September, the population of prisons and detention centers was 17,170 persons, or 156 percent of capacity, which represents an increase of 9 percent from 2000.  Tougher maximum sentences have contributed to the increase in the prison population.  According to officials, the general health of prisoners declined in the last few years.

Between 65 and 70 percent of prisoners earn wages while in prison, either from work performed in prison or from work-release programs.  The HHC reported that the wages prisoners received were lower than those of workers outside of penal institutions.  The organization also expressed its concern that the period of time spent working in penal institutions by prisoners does not count towards social security service time.  Some programs allow prisoners to spend weekends at home.  There are sports facilities, as well as radio and television, in each penal institution.  Libraries also were available and prisoners may attend training programs to assist their eventual return to life outside of prison.  Civic organizations, foundations, charity organizations, and churches assist in the rehabilitation process.  In response to a report by the chief Ombudsman, a new predetention center was opened in 2000, reconstruction work on two prisons continued, and a new prison is scheduled to open in early 2003.  Men and women are held separately, juveniles are held separately from adults, and pretrial detainees are held separately from convicted prisoners. 

In the 1980s, the principal women's organization was the National Council of Hungarian Women. Its official role was to educate women socially and politically and to participate in devising new laws and regulations that affected women. The organization had a network of local and regional committees, whose members engaged in voluntary social work. In 1985 the council had about 32,000 designated female "stewards," and about 160,000 women were said to be active in the organization.

Today, spousal abuse is believed to be common in Hungary+, but the vast majority of such abuse is not reported, and victims who come forward often receive little help from authorities.  The NGO Women Against Violence reported that 20 percent of women are threatened by or are victims of domestic violence and that one woman per week is beaten to death.  NGO's also reported that there is insufficient emphasis on the protection of female crime victims.  During the year, there were no known prosecutions for domestic violence.  Police and prosecutors usually are unsympathetic to victims of domestic abuse.  The laws criminalize spousal rape.  Women's rights organizations claim that 1 woman in 10 is a victim of spousal abuse and that societal attitudes towards spousal abuse are archaic.  During the year, Parliament enacted legislation that prohibits domestic violence and establishes criminal penalties for those convicted of such acts.

While there are laws against rape, often it is unreported for cultural reasons.  Police attitudes towards victims of sexual abuse reportedly are often unsympathetic, particularly if the victim was acquainted with her abuser.  In the first 6 months of the year, women were victims of 44,447 reported crimes; in 2000 women were the victims of 88,521 reported crimes.  During the first 6 months of the year, there were 5,059 reports of crimes against family, youth, and sexual morality.  NGO's claimed that the police were unable to assist victims in one-third of the reported cases.  The Ministry of Social and Family Affairs was dealing with this issue and is reported to be working on remedial legislation. 

Victims of domestic violence may obtain help and information via a national hot line or at one of several shelters.  The hot line operates intermittently for 3-hours each day; a message system exists for the time when a counselor is unavailable.  Shelters provide short-term refuge, and their locations are concealed to protect victims.

Prostitution is illegal; however, in accordance with the law, there are "tolerance zones" where such activity may occur.   

Trafficking in women for the purposes of sexual exploitation was a serious problem The law does not prohibit sexual harassment in the workplace.  A 1995 report on the country prepared under the auspices of the U.N. to evaluate compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women found that sexual harassment in the workplace was "virtually epidemic."  Women's groups reported that there is little support for efforts to criminalize sexual harassment, and that sexual harassment is tolerated by women who fear unemployment more than harassment. The Labor Code regulates questions of security in the workplace; acts of sexual harassment may be prosecuted under the defamation statutes (if violent, such acts are considered sexual misconduct).  Sentences of up to 3 years' imprisonment may be imposed for sexual harassment.  During the year, no charges were brought under this provision of the Labor Code.

Women have the same rights as men, including identical inheritance and property rights.  The Office for Women's Issues operated an antidiscrimination hot line, which operates 10 hours a day and offers free legal advice to women who believe that they were discriminated against with respect to employment.  According to the head of the office, the hot line receives 20 to 30 calls per day.  While there is no overt discrimination against women, the number of women in middle or upper managerial positions in business and government remained low, and in practice women receive lower pay compared to men in similar positions and occupations.  Nevertheless, the number of women in the police and the military has risen over the past several years, and women are represented heavily in the judiciary and in the medical and teaching professions.  A Women's Representative office was established in the Ministry of Social and Family Affairs to address women's issues.  As of 2000, the Women's Representation Secretariat became an independent department within the Ministry.

The Communist Youth League (Kommunista Ifjúsagi Szovetseg-- KISZ) catered to young people. KISZ was the HSWP's official youth organization. It claimed to represent all the country's youth and sought to educate young people politically and to supervise political as well as some social activities for them. KISZ was the most important source of new members for the party. Its organizational framework paralleled that of the HSWP and included a congress, central committee, secretariat, and regional and local committees. Membership was open to youth from the ages of fourteen to twenty-six years, but most of the full-time leaders of the organization were well over the age limit. In the 1980s, KISZ had about 800,000 members. Membership was common, if rather pro forma, among university students (96 percent of whom were members) but was lower among young people already working (31 percent).

In the late 1980s, KISZ undertook sweeping reforms of its own organizational structure. In April 1989 delegates to the organization's national congress voted to change the name of the organization to the Democratic Youth Federation. According to declarations adopted by the congress, the newly refashioned federation would be a voluntary league of independent youth organizations and would not accept direction from any single party, including the HSWP.

A separate organization within KISZ, the Association of Young Pioneers, was formed for youngsters in elementary school. Membership was open to children from six to fourteen years of age. The Young Pioneers served many of the same functions as the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts in the West. The organization also attempted to explain to children the basic tenets of the MarxistLeninist worldview. Joining the Young Pioneers was a matter of course for most youngsters in elementary school. Most meetings took place in classrooms of primary schools. Bands of Young Pioneers could be seen on many ceremonial occasions, dressed in the organization's characteristic white shirts and red ties. The summer camps sponsored by the organization were a highlight of the year for many children.

The Government is committed to children's rights.  Education is mandatory and free through 16 years of age.  The Ministry of Education estimates that 95 percent of school-age children, with the exception of Roma children, are enrolled in school.  Roma are far more likely than non-Roma to stop attending school before age 16.  The percentage of the country's Roma graduating from high school in 1993 was 1.6 percent compared with 23.8 percent for non-Roma. 

Roma and other civic organizations highlighted the practice of placing Roma children in remedial education programs designed for children with mental disabilities or low academic performance, resulting in a form of de facto segregation.  Although the children could be returned to the regular school system, only a small percentage return.  In 1999 the Minister of Education and the parliamentary Ombudsman for Minority Rights announced at a press conference that there is segregation in the country's educational system.  The statement followed the publication of a report by the Ombudsman's office that found that the high proportion of Romani children in "special schools" for the mentally disabled was a sign of prejudice and a failure of the public education system.  The Government Office of Ethnic Minorities reports that 7 percent of Roma children go to special schools for children with mental disabilities.  The Roma Civic Rights Foundation found that there were 132 segregated schools throughout the country.  The Government contests the claims of human rights organizations and states that the Romani schools are designed to provide intensive help for disadvantaged children.

In September 2000 the Government converted the family allowance into a school attendance allowance.  This measure was intended to force children to go to school, but some Romani NGO's fear that this may be another form of discrimination against Roma, many of whom live in small villages with no high schools within manageable distance.  Furthermore, the extreme poverty of many Roma makes it difficult for them to clothe their children appropriately for school.  Taking away the family allowance is thus seen by Roma as punishment for neglecting to do something that they cannot afford.

There are programs aimed at increasing these numbers (the Romaversitas program supports Romani students finishing degrees in institutions of higher education), and there are Departments of Roma Studies in the Teachers' Training College in Pecs and Zsambek.  The Government provides a number of scholarships to Roma children at all levels of education through the Public Foundation for the Hungarian Roma.  However, the impact has yet to be significant.

School-age children may receive free medical care at state-operated institutions and most educational facilities.  Psychologists are available to evaluate and counsel children, and provisions exist for children to obtain dental care; the Social Security Office provides these services.

Child abuse was a problem.  A 1999 survey showed that over 25 percent of girls were abused by a family member before they reached the age of 12.  NGO's reported that neglect and abuse were common in state care facilities.  A number of laws have been passed to address family violence, including a law on the protection of children.  The Criminal Code provides for serious sanctions against the neglect and endangerment of minors, assault, and preparation of child pornography.  During the first half of the year, children were the victims of 1,450 crimes; in 2000 they were the victims of 2,929 crimes.

Child prostitution is not a common practice, although isolated incidents exist.  Severe penalties exist under the law for those persons convicted of engaging in such acts.  Trafficking in children for the purpose of sexual exploitation was a problem.

Hungary is a transit country for trafficking victims, and to a lesser extent a source and destination country. Women and girls are trafficked for sexual exploitation mostly from Romania, Ukraine, Moldova, Poland, Yugoslavia, and China to and through Hungary to Austria, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, France, Switzerland and the United States. Men trafficked for forced labor through Hungary to European Union countries come from Iraq, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

The Government of Hungary does not fully comply with minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. Hungary’s laws criminalize trafficking in persons and kidnapping. The government investigated and prosecuted an increased number of trafficking cases in 2001. Police in eastern Hungary believe the traffickers are better equipped than law enforcement officials. Allegedly police and immigration officials often refuse to accept reports of kidnapping of young women. Law enforcement authorities contend that the kidnappings are difficult to prosecute without eyewitness testimony and victims often refuse to testify. Corruption of border officials is a problem, although border guards have been arrested for supporting human smugglers. Regarding protection, the government provides only limited assistance to trafficking victims. In theory, assistance with temporary resident status, short-term relief from deportation, and shelter assistance are available to trafficking victims who cooperate with police and prosecutors. There are, however, no documented cases of such assistance having been rendered. Allegedly police and immigration officials often treat trafficking victims as criminals. Hungarian consular officials are not empowered to provide any legal or financial assistance to Hungarian victims abroad. To prevent trafficking, the government works with an international NGO and a women’s rights organization conducting preventive programs for teenagers in schools. The government provides some support through the public fund "For a Safe Hungary" to a women’s rights organization that runs a hotline which provides information on types of trafficking-associated advertisements and situations young women should avoid. The government has established a Victim Protection Office and a victim protection fund, and has posted brochures on victim protection in every police station. The government provides some continuing financial assistance to prevention programs. The government has consulted with NGOs to provide anti-trafficking sensitivity training to police, and has conducted training of government officials in techniques to identify and combat trafficking.

The law prohibits trafficking in persons; however, trafficking in persons remained a serious problem. Some border guards facilitated trafficking.

Parliament amended the Penal Code to add a trafficking law that provides penalties commensurate with those for rape. Under the law, even preparation for the trafficking of persons is a criminal offense. The penalty for trafficking was between 2 and 8 years in prison; the trafficking of minors was punishable by up to 10 years in prison. However, if an organized trafficking ring is involved, the sentence can be life imprisonment or seizure of assets. An amendment to the alien law provided for immediate expulsion from the country of foreign traffickers. Prosecution of traffickers was difficult because there was no legislation to protect victims; however, in 2001 a total of 34 trafficking cases were brought to trial, all of which remained pending at year's end. The Police Organized Crime Task Force investigated trafficking cases involving organized crime, and the Government cooperated with other countries to facilitate improved police cooperation to combat organized crime and trafficking in persons.

The country was primarily a transit point, but was also a source and destination country for trafficked persons. Women and children were trafficked for sexual exploitation primarily from Romania, Ukraine, Moldova, Poland, Yugoslavia, and China to and through the country to Austria, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, France, Switzerland, and the United States. Trafficking victims from Hungary typically were women from the eastern part of the country, where unemployment was high. They were trafficked to other European countries or other parts of the world, primarily to Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, as well as Canada, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, and Turkey. In October the Government repatriated several Hungarian women trafficked to Cyprus for prostitution. Men trafficked for forced labor through the country en route to EU countries and the United States were from Iraq, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan.

Organized crime syndicates brought many of the victims of trafficking to the country, either for work as prostitutes in Budapest, or in transit to Western Europe or North America. Hungarian trafficking rings also exploited victims by using them as babysitters, housekeepers, and manual laborers. Russian-speaking organized crime syndicates were active in trafficking women, primarily from Ukraine and other countries of the former Soviet Union to EU countries through Hungary. Hungarian victims mainly were young women, although they also included men, middle-aged women, and children. They were recruited at discos and modeling agencies, through word-of-mouth, or even through open advertisements in local papers and magazines. Reportedly, some victims knew that they were going to work illegally; others believed they were getting foreign visas; others expected to work, but believed their employers were obtaining the appropriate papers and permission, but their employers turned out to be traffickers. Once at their destination, they were forced into prostitution or other exploitation. Traffickers often confiscated identification documents and severely restricted the freedom of movement of their victims.

Corruption among some border officials persisted during the year; this corruption aided traffickers. During the year, the Ministry of Interior concluded two investigations involving 65 border guards, and charged 12 with corruption. Both investigations confirmed that certain border guards stationed on the Slovakian, Ukrainian, and Romanian borders received bribes to allow foreigners to enter the country without inspection of their travel documents, and to waive inspection of the contents of some vehicles. Those guards charged with corruption were held in pretrial detention pending the commencement of their case in a military court. At year's end, these cases remained pending.

The Government provided limited assistance to victims of trafficking. In principle assistance with temporary residency status, short-term relief from deportation, and shelter assistance were available to trafficking victims who cooperated with police and prosecutors; however, there were no documented cases where such assistance was provided. Reportedly, police and immigration officials often treated trafficking victims as criminals, and refused to believe reports of kidnaping of young women.

The Ministry of Interior established a Victims' Protection Office, a victims' protection fund, and has posted information on victim protection in every county police headquarters. Branches of a new Victims' Protection Office, which provided psychological and social support services and legal aid for victims in an effort to safeguard their rights and minimize the trauma of trials, operated in 42 localities. However, the women's NGO Women Against Violence Against Women (NANE) reported that the Victim Protection Office did not deal exclusively or even primarily with victims of trafficking.

The International Organization on Migration (IOM) continued a program funded by the EU to raise awareness of the problem of trafficking and to educate potential victims. Women's rights organizations, the IOM, and the Ministry of Youth and Sports Affairs were conducting preventive programs for teenagers in schools. NANE established an information hot line that operated simultaneously with the IOM campaign to provide information on the types of trafficking-associated advertisements and situations that young women should beware of. NANE, the IOM, the Public Fund For a Safe Hungary, and funding from foreign governments established a joint project to continue and enhance the operation of the hot line.

NGOs working on trafficking problems reported that cooperation with government agencies working on trafficking issues was improving. The NGOs provided some training to law enforcement officers in the recognition and identification of trafficking victims. This included sensitivity training as well as techniques to combat trafficking in persons.

Hungary is an important transit country for illegal narcotics from the Middle East to Western Europe. After dramatically increasing early in the 1990's, drug seizures have remained relatively stable in the last several years. Heroin seizures increased in 1998. Domestic consumption of illegal narcotics, particularly locally produced LSD and "ecstasy," continues to rise. The Hungarian Government recently passed legislation, going into effect in December 1998, that is among the strictest in Europe. The new legislation will introduce strict penalties for using as well as selling illegal narcotics. Drug traffickers may be punished with life imprisonment. Civil rights activists, however, argue that the harsh new penalties will punish users unfairly. The new legislation is part of the new conservative coalition's efforts to "get tough" on crime. The Hungarian Parliament ratified the 1988 UN Drug Convention on Narcotics in 1996; a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) and an Extradition Treaty between the U.S. and Hungary entered into force in 1997.

Hungary continues to be a major transit country for illegal narcotics smuggled from Southwest Asia and the Balkans to Western Europe. Continued unrest in Albania and the former Yugoslavia, coupled with the good road, rail and air connections, make Hungary an attractive choice for drug smugglers. Drug confiscations on Hungarian borders remained stable in 1998. Cocaine confiscation continued to fall, owing to vigilance of inspectors at Budapest's Ferihegy Airport, thereby diverting drugs to softer routes. According to Hungarian Government reports, the transit and sale of narcotics in Hungary is mostly controlled by foreign groups, particularly from Albania, Turkey and Nigeria, many of whom have been resident in Hungary for years. Ethnic Turks increasingly use more sophisticated means to transport narcotics through Hungary, including using German-licensed vehicles that are less closely scrutinized by border guards.

Hungarian Government authorities claim that marijuana, ecstasy and LSD are locally produced; all other illegal narcotics are imported. Marijuana is mostly cultivated in Western Hungary. 20 marijuana plantations reportedly were eradicated in 1998.

Hungarian authorities report an increasingly serious domestic consumption problem, including approximately 100,000 addicts and 35,000 to 50,000 occasional users. Drug-related deaths from overdoses and traffic accidents rose from 204 in 1995 to 289 in 1996 (latest figures available). Heroin and cocaine prices are falling, but remain too high for most Hungarians. Domestically produced "ecstasy," LSD and marijuana are widely available, and use is rising. In 1997, the Hungarian Government spent approximately $60,000 on demand reduction programs, including teacher training and curriculum development. The USG, EU PHARE and other international donors also provide some funding for demand reduction efforts.

Anti-crime legislation, introduced as the first initiative of the new government coalition elected in May 1998, will stiffen Hungary's criminal code, provide for life imprisonment of drug traffickers, create new criminal provisions for the production of chemical precursors and increase penalties for drug-related crimes. All drug consumers, including casual users, are subject to criminal penalties, although addicts may be exempted from prosecution. Civil rights leaders claim that the new provisions, among the strictest in Europe, will punish unfairly casual users, while exempting hard core addicts. An ad hoc parliamentary committee called for disbanding the Inter-ministerial Drug Committee and creation of a new "drug czar" and office for anti-narcotics strategy in the Prime Minister's office. Criminal penalties for producing precursor chemicals will increase substantially when new legislation is enacted.

Hungarian and Austrian border authorities have joined efforts in cross-border anti-narcotics investigations. Hungarian officials continue to participate actively in international law enforcement training efforts, particularly through the Budapest-based International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA). The USG enjoys consistently good cooperation with its Hungarian Government counterparts.

Hungary's new government has targeted organized crime- and narcotics-related corruption in Hungarian law enforcement agencies. The governing coalition passed an anti-Mafia legislative package; however, implementation has been delayed beyond the December 1998 date originally foreseen. The legislation includes increased criminal penalties for organized crime relating to drugs and money laundering in addition to a number of other areas.

Hungary is a party to the 1961 UN Convention amended by the 1972 Protocol, the 1971 UN Convention and the 1988 UN Drug Convention. On March 18, 1997, a new extradition treaty and a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty between the U.S. and Hungary entered into force.

USG support for Hungarian Government counternarcotics efforts is focused on training and cooperation, primarily through the Budapest-based, State Department-funded ILEA, established in 1995. In 1998, ILEA trained 145 Hungarians, as well as law enforcement professionals from over thirty countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. ILEA's eight-week core curriculum contains a significant component of counternarcotics training. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) provided region-specific counternarcotics training to 32 law enforcement personnel from Central Asia in November 1998. The DEA maintains an office in Vienna, Austria that is accredited to Hungary and works with local authorities. The DEA also ran a number of courses in Prague and Bratislava that included Hungarian participants. USIA and USAID partially fund several programs that stress demand reduction and curriculum development targeted for junior high school students.

The USG supports Hungarian legislative efforts to stiffen criminal penalties for drug offenses, and will continue to support the Hungarian Government through training at ILEA and elsewhere. The U.S. Ambassador's law enforcement initiative is bringing greater Embassy resources to bear on the fight against organized crime, including drug trafficking. As part of that effort, the USG will continue to sponsor law enforcement training programs, such as internal controls training for the Hungarian National Police in December 1998.

Internet research assisted by Randall S. Ahmann and Josh Berke