Budapest center against the violation of human rights

The Hungarian foreign minister and the directors of two Budapest based universities signed the Deed of Foundation of the Budapest Center on the International Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities at the two-day Human Rights Forum in the Hungarian capital Monday.

The Budapest Center on the International Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities will hopefully be set up by the end of the Hungarian Presidency in the first half of 2011. That is according to Hungarian Foreign Minister János Martonyi who spoke after signing – together with the directors of the Central European University and the Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary – the Deed of Foundation of the Budapest Center on the International Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities aimed at identifying impending genocides.

The signing ceremony was part of the two-day 3rd Budapest Human Rights Forum taking place in the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In his speech, János Martonyi added that the establishment of this center against the violation of human rights is assisted by several prominent academics and experts and the objectives of the institution can also be found among the aims of the Spanish-Belgian-Hungarian EU presidency.

In a video message to the participants of the Forum, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay expressed his view that genocides and other violation of human rights do not occur overnight. For this reason, prevention is very important and that can effectively be supported by this center in Budapest.