István Gábor Takács is a human rights activist, videographer and trainer. He ran the Video Advocacy Program of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union between 2007-2015. He worked as a needle exchange program counselor for 5 years. He is author of several articles on harm reduction and cameraman, editor, director and co-director of more than 700 online videos, among them longer documentaries, such as “Kostya Proletarsky” (2020), “Taking Back What’s Ours: An Oral History of the Movement of People who Use Drugs” (2020) ”A Day in the Life: The World of Humans Who Use Drugs” (2016), “Without Rights” (2009), “Without a Chance” (2014), “Room in the 8th District” (2014) and “The Invisible” (2011). Since 2016 he works at the Rights Reporter Foundation, where besides producing films, he is training activists in video advocacy.
Despite the violent abuses that came to light against people who use drugs, the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) has been recognized by the Serbian government as an important partner in treating people with addictions. NGOs working in the field have expressed serious concerns about the SOC’s ambitions in this area.
New legal provisions aimed at banning legal highs continue to ignore the inevitable disastrous consequences for public health. The legislation, which came into force last month, raises several questions.
Leader of the Slovakian Simple People and Free Personalities Party, Igor Matovic, poured a box of syringes used for injecting heroin over the head of Martin Poliačik, a fellow MP.
Our video “The Human Rights Costs of the War on Drugs” has won first prize for best online video series. Our Hungarian language animated promotional video won first prize in the ‘PR video’ category
14 harm reduction and drug policy activists were trained in Budapest by the HCLU. We wish our partner trainees successful use of their newly acquired video advocacy skills in their struggle for human rights and humane drug policies!
The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU) announces a Call for Applications to its 5 day long Video Advocacy Training to be held in Budapest on 20-26 May 2012. Application deadline is 19 March, 2012.