Today, Friday the 21.02.2025, Maja T.’s pretrial took place. The court
proposed a deal including 14 years of prison and a plea of guilty. Maja
rejected the deal and read out a defiant speech:

“Yes, I have something to say. I want to speak to you, who represent the
state of Hungary and its citizens and who will judge in their name. And
I want to speak to everyone who is willing to listen.

I know I am not standing alone today and this experience fills my heart
with deep gratitude.
I am not the only accused one in this trial, the repression has
demonstrated a depressing continuity.
Still, in everything I am going to read out today I will only speaking
for myself. It would be presumptuous to speak for others. But to say it
clearly: I wouldn’t stand here in front of you, if I wouldn’t know about
all the burning hearts full of empathy and solidarity.

So here I am. Chained and accused by a state for whom I, Maja, a
non-binary person, doesn’t even exist. It’s a state which openly
discriminates people based on their sexuality or their gender. I am
accused by a state of the European Union for being an antifascist.
Still, I decided to speak. I am standing here, because I got kidnapped
and extradited 8 months ago. This was committed by a state who’s
constitution promised to respect and protect my dignity, but who’s
authorities ignored the decision of their highest court, knowing what
awaits me here and knowing that their very own actions are illegal. They
extradited me to a state who’s commitment for civil rights and
democratic principles are already fading on the paper they are written
on. A state that puts people into prions who dare to defend the
self-determination of humans and promise “never again fascism”. I am
standing here, for my birth bore a promise out of which I grew. The
promise to be a human. It was never complete. Free and privileged but
full of pain and always searching for ways to make sure that that, what
no devil can commit, will never be repeated. Capable to commit this was
and is only the human. So to this day the human still builds oppressive,
totalitarian and devastating states, driven by hate and envy, trying to
escape their imperfections. The human created the Shoa and more
cruelties than the sky gave us stars. But at the same time, humans never
stopped hoping for a peaceful future.

The prosecutor believes to see burning hate in my soul, while calling
those who glorify the Holocaust a minority which needs to be protected.
It is necessary to clarify that I am accused of physical violence
against people who came to this city to celebrate the “day of honor” 2
years ago. Those days function as international fascist gathering,
including demonstrations, hiking tours and demonstrations. Supported and
legitimated by the state’s authorities. Full of pride and glory, these
people gather to follow the paths which German and Hungarian Nazis once
took, when they tried to avoid to be held responsible for being
murderers. They party on concerts of deeply racist and antisemitic
bands, that call for hate and violence and collect money for far-right
terrorist networks like “blood and honor”.

Today we are gathering to prepare a trial, in which I am already
convicted. The pretrial detention is already a punishment, since the
conditions of detention are violating all assurances the Hungarian state
has given. Neither the “European Prison Rules” nor the “Nelson Mandela
Rules” of the United Nations are applied here. I am continuously kept in
long-term solitary confinement, which in fact means less than 30 minutes
of contact to other humans per day – since more than 200 days. In this
pretrial detention I am not allowed to study, I don’t have enough books,
necessary vitamins are refused, as well as doctor appointments, daylight
and healthy food. I got extradited into a prison which takes degrading
and humiliating measures, without any explanation or justification. Even
upon request, there is no answer. So I still had to wear handcuffs, even
for Skype calls and official visits in my cell. Up to this day I was
forced by several dozens of people to get naked in front of them.
Despite that I felt too ashamed to change clothes in my cell, since a
camera was illegally installed for 3 months. What stays until today are
bedbugs, cockroaches and the light of the hourly controls, which
deprives me of sleep in the night. In my sleep, I dream to finally hold
my family in my arms, people who I wasn’t allowed to grief with and who
I am only able to see behind plexiglass for 2 hours each month. I am
standing here today, already carrying physical and mental damage. My
vision is fading, my body exhausted. The prison forces me to talk to
myself since its refusing me the contact to fellow prisoners because of
my queer identity. The only reason for this is to punish me and to break
my vitality. Responsible for that is not only the Hungarian justice
system but every court which extended the pretrial detention. Recently
they extended the pretrial detention to 2,5 years or until the end of
the trial.

The fact that I am alone in front of this court has good reasons. The
Hungarian justice system has lost all credibility and other European
courts have refused cooperation. Which is the right way.
My trial too, should have took place in Germany where I could prepare
and defend myself, together with the others who are prosecuted there. I
expect that this will now finally be put to an end, that I get the
possibility to prepare my trial on equal terms and not cut off from all
self-expression.
I expect that I won’t be punished longer with inhumane solitary
confinement, which causes long term damage and already drains my
strength. Not only the conditions of my imprisonment need to be rejected
but also the fact that neither risk of repetition nor risk of flight is
given. I did not get informed about the 1 month old arrest warrants from
German and Hungarian police and I never stated I would evade the trial.

I want to state that I am supposed to defend myself against so-called
evidences, without ever having seen them. Until today I haven’t seen the
complete documents. I am supposed to defend myself against a mountain of
files, which has not been translated to me, mostly written in Hungarian.
I am supposed to prepare myself while the prison has repeatedly send my
lawyer away. Lawyers weren’t allowed to show me the files but you expect
me to answer to a hypothetical indictment. I can’t find a single word
that describes my real personality, that is based on facts or even just
explains their thesis that I would be part of a criminal organization.
No kidding, you are expecting that I accept your visions as my own,
admit a guilt and take years behind bars? The same period of time as my
youth, that has just passed? 14 years in harsh conditions, without the
possibility for probation. Just to spare you the embarrassment when your
fragile sentences fall apart because you lost all your credibility. Dear
prosecutor, be at least honest enough to admit that you want to starve
me in solitary confinement, to enforce a verdict without a real trial.

I must note I am imprisoned since 14 months. Since the 11th of December
2023 I am cut off from my previous life. I am deprived of the
possibility to study, to continue my work. I am cut off from my family
and deprived of the possibility to support them and to participate in a
society which I want to contribute to. I am deprived of the necessity to
develop and express myself as a human being. I am deprived of all that,
with the goal to tear my political being apart. But what remains for me
are the words. Words I write and words I speak out. And I won’t stop as
long as I am alive and thinking.

I wrote a indictment too. It talks about what I have lived through the
past year. It helped me to bear my wounds and is partly incorporated in
this text.  I’m keeping quiet about their oppressive details, because
today and in this process it’s about much more than myself. It is about
what kind of society we want to live in and whether we can accept state
actions if they contradict our morals. Neither am I at home in this
country, nor have I managed to learn its language. But I know what it
does to its citizens, how it treats the people who are at their mercy.
Yes, I heard screams and beatings from other cells, the crying and
whimpering, the rage and desperation which, after a time, looses any
human melody. I saw lost and terrified eyes and listened to degrading
words, which come up when humans create systems and places to take away
the free will of others, to give power to some and fill it up with
judging words and punishing acts. I have seen prisons in Germany and
Hungary and I want to argue that humans are ripped off their dignity
there. No matter if they are guarding or being guarded. I can’t arrogate
to judge the people I have met, but I know that society is failing here.

Being conscious of that, I can’t deny those moments when I am sitting at
my cells desk and am unable to keep the beauty of this world with me. My
mind is constantly following the suffering of my fellow inmates, only
interrupted by the throbbing of my wounds.

It flees from the powerlessness, gets lost in the feeling of
helplessness, torn from my body, torn from yesterday and tomorrow, then
I only see what seems unreachable now, but from which humanity sprouts
for me, the legacy of seeking common ground with each other without
judging the human being for their being, their bodies and abilities,
trying to create something valuable together without exploiting and
oppressing, being able to forgive each other for failures without
remaining silent and finally admiring how trust in a coming, peaceful
tomorrow emerges form all of this.

But the tears of pain are vanishing, latest when I read your letters,
when the newspapers are telling me about the world and about how utopias
keep people alive. People who didn’t abandon their  implicitness and
their morals, who are willing to defend and create them. People that
aren’t looking away when humans commit cruelties, looking at human
incompleteness neither bitter nor paralyzed. Instead living the attempts
of creativity and solidarity, looking for ways out of the violence,
fueled by greed, power seeking and smugness. I admire every banality
which tries to understand the complexity of this world and acts wherever
its possible.

I want to share my way with those who doubt, without exchanging their
morals and their tenderness for elusive ideas of individual felicity. I
respect everyone who grasp humanity as one but still sees the uniqueness
of every human being, sprouted from their experience. Its not a
fulfilled existence, no, we fail, we can’t escape neither ourself nor
this world. But we are able to act, we can learn to trust each other and
oneself, we can surpass ourselves when we try to understand, to grasp
and to act out of empathetic reflexes. We can support when things get
dangerous, when protection is missing and people flee, we can share, we
can stay where the pain and suffering is bigger, knowing not to be
alone.

But I can’t stop my eyes from hurting, more and more often they close
due to tiredness and my senses break down. But even with closed eyelids,
it is impossible to evade the wars, starvation, environmental
destruction and unfair distribution which creates painful facts. There
is still a offensive war rampaging in Europe and we can’t ignore fascism
spreading out, whether on a continent which seems far away or in our
neighbour’s garden. Totalitarian desires and authoritarian
entanglements, exclusion and national isolation are having a rebirth. I
am asking myself, what’s going to happen when everybody just wants to
save themselves? Are we escaping collective powerlessness like that?
Where is the fear and the desperation driving us? I could see in the
last weeks how those feelings can make me want to abandon hope and turn
away from my life. But then I saw how a tender plant was growing, on a
place where there hasn’t been sunshine for months, showing that the
winter will end. Seeing that I had to admit, even in this hell on earth,
flowers can grow. In the gab of a wall and in myself. It doesn’t take
much.  First of all the trust that courage and confidence can turn small
into big and make us resilient against the waiting for better days.
Those days, where we see how all our actions are deciding what will grow
in our garden when the spring has come. Many times I don’t know how,
only know that daring is necessary and that when we are honest we know
that it is possible, by meeting strangers like ourselves.

Today I see some of your faces, I have read about dreams. Was allowed to
share lifetime with you, to feel solidarity. Was admiring and envying
how you stand for being humans who resist. To overcome old rusty borders
of cold iron in words and in thoughts. To express a queer, loving self,
in feminist self-determination of empathy without borders and in all the
emancipatory struggles for justice for all people. For today my words
end soon. If necessary, I will dissent, especially if they continue to
lock me up and to try to break my dignity with violence. Because yes
today is still about the question of a constitutional trial. The
question how it is accredited that I am confronted with those conditions
of imprisonment, that they are trying to punish me in such humiliating
and damaging ways. But it’s not on me to change that. By extraditing me,
the German authorities have disrespected their highest court. Hungarian
courts are breaking European Laws and their confirmations, showing yet
another time how far away they are from so-called democratic rules. I
can only report, dissent and call for everyone to do the same. I know I
am not the only one experiencing that and I hope my words reach everyone
who rise up against the far-right, fascism, patriarchy, exploitation of
nature and humans, against structural and racist violence, repression
and who build up alternatives and stand for emancipation, queer life and
dignity for all, who got locked up and prosecuted for that. I want them
all to know that I am with them, in my words and my thoughts, may they
soon be free again. My last words are for my family, friends, comrades
and lawyers, who stand unapologetically with us.

You are showing me that utopias of a better world aren’t so far away.
You are giving me power to live, you hold my beating heart in safety,
you make me know that I won’t perish here.
I know the gratefulness makes me fight for the possibility to give that
back to you one day.
I love you a lot! And everyone else I honestly want to thank for taking
the time to listen to me.