Budapest, Hungary (AP) — Last week, tens of thousands of football fans gathered at the Puskas Arena in Budapest to take part in the Euro 2020 match. This was the first Full House international football event in Europe in over a year. This was made possible primarily by the adoption of government-issued immunity cards by Hungary.

Hungary, the only host country in the tournament to allow full stadiums, conducted one of Europe’s most successful COVID-19 vaccination drives. The Immunity Card proves that the owner has been vaccinated at least once or has been recovered from COVID-19, services such as dining at hotels, spas, concerts, theaters, indoor restaurants as well as sporting events. And allow access to the venue.

Cards have allowed many to regain many aspects of their pre-pandemic life, but others are worried that their use may affect their basic rights.

“There was a lot of concern in society about the potential for discrimination,” said David Vig, director of the rights group Amnesty International Hungary. “(The government) will distinguish between those who have a vaccination card and those who do not.”

Hungary’s procurement of vaccines from Russia and China and through the European Union quickly resulted in the second highest vaccination rate in the block of 27 members after Malta. According to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, more than 66% of adults are vaccinated at least once.

However, in recent weeks, the pace of vaccination has slowed dramatically, as most people who want to get vaccinated already have jabs. According to government statistics, about 2 million people do not yet have an exemption card, limiting many opportunities available to cardholders.

These ongoing restrictions on unvaccinated underlie the government’s strategy to provide incentives for vaccination, Big said.

“The vaccination card and the strategy behind it were good from a government perspective, which was like directing people to vaccination,” he said.

However, in a statement in April, the Hungarian Citizens’ Freedom Union said that the card would be “temporarily or permanently vaccinated for health conditions, such as women at certain stages of pregnancy and women with chronic illness. He insisted that he discriminates against people who cannot. Vaccination is not recommended.

The group claimed that those who were unable to complete the required online vaccine registration due to lack of internet access, and others, are facing discrimination.

More than 60,000 fans were admitted to the Puskas Arena in last week’s Euro 2020 match, but the Hungarian government has other issues, including protests against people without an immunity card because of pandemic concerns. We continue to limit public events.

In early June, thousands gathered in Budapest in opposition to right-wing Prime Minister Victor Oban’s plans to host a Chinese university in the capital. The protest organizers divided the march into several smaller groups to circumvent the rule limiting 500 outdoor events for non-cardholders.

According to Vig, such cases show that the government has used pandemics and immunity cards to reduce basic rights despite dramatic improvements in pandemic indicators in recent weeks. ..

“More than 50-55% of society was already vaccinated, but (but) demonstrations were still impossible … it’s a very obvious violation of international human rights standards,” Vig said. However, such restrictions on protests were later lifted.

“The government has the power to limit these rights for a period of time, as needed and if the limits are proportional to the goals they want to achieve, but not for a long period of time or an unlimited amount of time,” he says. I did.

Akos Sipos, a 45-year-old web analyst in Budapest, decided to present personally identifiable information along with a disclaimer card when entering public places, allowing the person checking the card to access the personal information. He said he was uncomfortable.

“I don’t think it’s good to have to show your ID to the guards if you want to eat pizza somewhere,” Sipos told The Associated Press.

“They don’t have a business that knows when I was born,” or other personal data said.

Nevertheless, he acknowledged that such measures were needed to continue to curb the pandemic.

“I understood the whole card as a necessary evil,” he said. “People who have been vaccinated need to be sure to track down for some reason.”

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Bela Szandelszky contributed to this report.

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