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German activist Maja T. goes on hunger strike in Hungary

59 0
07.06.2025

"I can no longer endure the prison conditions in Hungary. My cell was under round-the-clock video surveillance for over three months. I always had to wear handcuffs outside my cell, for over seven months," reads Maja T.'s statement. The non-binary German activist went on a hunger strike on June 5.

"Non-binary" refers to individuals who identify as neither exclusively female nor male. People like Maja T.* generally have a hard time in Hungary, although it is a member state of the European Union (EU), which has anti-discrimination provisions.

In 2021, Hungary first made legislative amendments to multiple laws, targeting LGBTQ individuals. In early 2025, under Viktor Orban's authoritarian rule, Hungary passed a law that can be used to ban Pride and similar events.

Maja T. has long given up hope of a fair criminal trial and wants to use the hunger strike to force a return to Germany. In June 2024, T. was extradited from Germany to Hungary and has been in solitary confinement in a Budapest prison ever since. The activist's trial began there on February 21.

The public prosecutor's office accuses the prisoner from Jena, in Germany's eastern state of Thuringia, of assaulting and seriously injuring several people in Budapest in February 2023. The victims had taken part in the so-called "Day of Honor," an annual march by neo-Nazis from all over Europe.

At the start of the criminal proceedings, T. was led into the........

© Deutsche Welle