Maja T.’s hunger strike entered its fifth week on Friday and they are now been hospitalised. The father of the non-binary person is drawing attention to this with a march to Berlin.
Maja T. has now been starving in prison in Budapest for four weeks. Now the non-binary detainee in Hungary’s capital has been transferred to a prison hospital. The Left Party MEP and parliamentary group leader Martin Schirdewan is among those drawing attention to this. The prison is located around 260 kilometres from Budapest on the border with Romania.
One of the reasons for the hunger strike is a demand for better prison conditions – such as an end to solitary confinement. According to their father Wolfgang Jarosch, Maja T. is now suffering from severe weight loss, increasing fatigue and a reduced ability to concentrate. ‘The fact that Maja has to resort to such drastic measures is a scandal,’ writes Jarosch in a press release.
Maja T. was arrested in Berlin in December 2023. The Hungarian authorities accused them of having attacked members of the far-right scene in Budapest together with other anti-fascist activists on the ‘Day of Honour’ in February 2023. In June 2024, they were extradited to Hungary – despite ongoing summary proceedings before the Federal Constitutional Court, which prohibited the measure. However, Maja T. had already been transferred at this point.
The trial in Budapest began in February, in which the Public Prosecutor’s Office is demanding 24 years in prison for Maja T. Also charged in absentia is the Albanian national Rexhino Abazaj, who was not extradited after his arrest in France due to doubts about the rule of law in Hungary. Because the Berlin Court of Appeal disregarded such concerns in its extradition decision, Maja T. and her supporters are demanding her return to Germany and a fair trial at a higher regional court.
Most recently, however, a court in Hungary itself rejected an application to let them transfer to house arrest – and justified this with an increased risk of escape in view of the very high expected sentence. However, Maja T. is said to at least have been able to leave their cell for one hour a day with four other prisoners to walk around the yard for the first time.
Because Hungarian courts would have to decide on the possible return of T., the Foreign Office denies any responsibility for this. However, the same ministry, headed by the conservative Johann Wadepfuhl, would be responsible for exerting political pressure on the matter on Hungary.
In protest against Germany’s inaction, T. finally went on hunger strike at the beginning of June. The court considered these protests against the judge’s decision to continue the trial in the third week of the denial of food to be ‘demonstrations of sympathy’. The supporters would also prove that the accused is a member of a criminal organisation.
“The German government must immediately prioritise their return from Hungary to Germany. What else needs to happen for the SPD [Socialdemocrats] and CDU [Conservatives] to finally wake up?” said European Left Party leader Schirdewan on Tuesday. The extradition was unlawful and this injustice must be rectified. The German government had a duty to do so.
In addition to Schirdewan, left-wing MEP Carola Rackete and Green politician Katrin Göring-Eckardt recently visited the person imprisoned in Hungary and called for a constitutional trial in Germany. To draw attention to the situation, their father is currently walking over 300 kilometres from Jena, Maja T.’s former place of residence, to Berlin. There, Jarosch wants to hand over a petition to the German government. In it, 100,000 signatories are calling for them to be returned to Germany.
Together with Maja T. and Rexhino Abazaj, the Italian Ilaria Salis is also on trial in Budapest for attacks on Nazis. She was able to avoid pre-trial detention by successfully running for the European Parliament, but in the long term she will not be able to avoid trial – even in absentia. Hungary’s government has applied for her immunity to be waived and the plenary must decide on this.
The MPs usually follow a resolution proposed by the responsible Legal Affairs Committee, but in the case of Salis there could be controversy. Originally, the Legal Affairs Committee wanted to decide on its position a week ago. However, this was postponed until after the summer holidays.
Published in German in „nd“.
Image: Secours Rouge Toulouse.
