Following the electoral defeat of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the German nonbinary person Maja T., who is being held in Hungary, is counting on a turn for the better. “That should give civil society, the public, some room to breathe,” Maja T. told taz in a message transmitted from a prison in Budapest. The winner of the parliamentary election, Peter Magyar, had presented himself to the EU as a “reliable partner” and promised to restore the rule-of-law framework that Orbán had hollowed out during his sixteen years in power.
The nonbinary person, who identifies with the left scene, was sentenced in February to eight years in prison. Judge Jozsef Sos found it proven that Maja T. participated in attacks on alleged neo-Nazis.
Maja T.’s lawyer Sven Richwin told the “taz”: “Even if genuine legal reforms may take some time, Maja can at least no longer serve as an anti-European projection surface for Orbán.” It is now the task of the German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul (CDU) to “resume the talks with Hungary that were interrupted over the Maja T. case and expedite extradition.”
From the Foreign Office, according to the report, there has been no change in the legal situation. The Foreign Office remains highly engaged with the case and will continue to raise it with the Hungarian side.
Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) had explicitly defended the verdict in February. Maja T. belongs to a left-wing extremist group that attacked others with batons, rubber mallets, and other weapons.
