Hike for Maja T.: Father demands freedom and dignified prison conditions!

Hike for Maja T.: Father demands freedom and dignified prison conditions!

Wolfram Jarosch has embarked on a remarkable hike: He is walking from Jena to Berlin - a distance of over 300 kilometers that he wants to complete in just over a week. He is currently on the stage from Bitterfeld to Wittenberg, in oppressive 34 degrees in the shade. But for Jarosch the journey is not just a sporting event, but an emotional call. His goal is to make German politicians aware of the dramatic situation of his daughter Maja T..

Maja T. is a nonbinary person who has been imprisoned in Hungary since February 2023 and has been on hunger strike for a month. She is currently in a detention hospital and has already lost over 12 kilograms. According to her father, her health and general condition suffer significantly from the conditions of solitary confinement, which are criticized as inhumane by numerous human rights organizations. Jarosch reports that Maja lives in a cell that is infested with bed bugs and cockroaches and hardly gets any daylight.

An appeal to the federal government

Jarosch demands that the Foreign Minister and Chancellor bring Maja to Germany in order to bring her to court. "The prison conditions in Hungary are intolerable. They violate basic human rights," said Jarosch. The Federal Constitutional Court has already ruled that the extradition of his daughter to Hungary is unlawful. This was determined on the basis of Article 4 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, as it fails to respect important human rights standards.

Criminal proceedings are underway in Budapest against Maja T. for an alleged attack on participants in a right-wing extremist march, which resulted in serious injuries. So far she has not commented on the allegations. The German lawyer Sven Richwin, who is defending her, criticizes the legal situation in Hungary and complains that basic principles of a fair trial are not being observed. The judge is perceived as biased and the principle of immediacy, important in German criminal proceedings, does not apply.

International dimension of delivery

The extradition of Maja T. is not just a national issue. In other European countries, such as France and Italy, extraditions to Hungary have been stopped for similar reasons, believing that human rights could be violated there. The case of Zaid A., a Syrian citizen, is also relevant in this country. He could also be extradited to Hungary, while the Berlin Court of Appeal has suspended the arrest warrant against him, despite the ongoing extradition proceedings.

Jarosch sees the rapid extradition of his daughter as possibly a coordinated effort to circumvent the jurisdiction of the Federal Constitutional Court. “It is striking that other countries have refused to transfer similar cases to Hungary, while Maja was unceremoniously extradited,” he says.

As Wolfram Jarosch completes the last kilometers of his hike, the hope remains that the pressure on the political level and the fate of other affected people will be heard. The next few days and the public could be decisive in determining whether Maja T. receives the support she urgently needs.

For further information on this topic, the reports from nd-current, tagesschau.de and BRak.de be consulted.