Free Agnes GerebYesterday was Ágnes’ 60th birthday, and tomorrow the start of her 3rd year under house arrest. Here is an update on her situation and likely developments in the New Year.

The court cases against her started on 6th December.
In the 3 new birth case incidents cited against Ágnes all the birthing mother’s involved support Ágnes unconditionally. In the 4th case where Ágnes is charged with „quackery“ for continuing to practice whilst banned as a doctor, all 200 mothers cited by the prosecution have written individual statements of support for Ágnes refuting the prosecution claim. The 5th charge against Ágnes claims that in an incident-free birth case she colluded with the parents to falsify the address of the birth. Again, Ágnes will robustly refute this charge. In connectiion with the trial please see:

Link 1 which concerns itself with the human rights aspects: http://www.szuleteshaz.hu/en/press-release/
Link 2 which contains comments by Ágnes and her lawyer Gábor Papp on their way into court on December 6th :
http://www.szuleteshaz.hu/en/press-release-of-justice-for-agnes-gereb-movement-new-trial-for-dr-agnes-gereb/.

We anticipate the trial will continue well into 2013 with the next dates scheduled for late February.

While our lawyers continue to defend Ágnes in court, our campaign in 2013 will focus on:

1. Fighting for the relaxation of the terms of her house arrest:
President Áder in his statement of 8th October acknowledged Ágnes’ expertise and contribution to home birth and maternity services: http://www.szuleteshaz.hu/en/press-releases-of-the-clemency/
We now need to build on this to remind the court, the media and the general public that she is a respected professional.
We would like to ask midwifery/birth organisations inside and outside Hungary to come up with ideas for Ágnes to contribute to birth/midwifery projects. These might include invitations to write papers for publication, to contribute to text books, or to participate in conferences. This would increase the pressure on the judge to occasionally allow Ágnes out of the house to do research, and reinforce our lawyers’ argument that these cases should never have been brought in the first case.

2. Maintaining the momentum of our domestic and international campaign:
This should leave the President and Hungarian Government in no doubt of the massive international support which Ágnes enjoys.
This is particularly important because (a) the President will finally review Ágnes’s clemency request once all court cases have been concluded, and (b) the Hungarian Government should amend the 2011 homebirth legislation to allow for an autonomous, self-regulating midwifery profession and thereby end the criminalisation of midwives involved in adverse birth incidents. This should also help ensure that in the future Ágnes can one day return to work.

With this in mind, we will initiate an email/letter writing campaign focused on Hungarian embassies abroad in late January. We will have some core questions for the Ambassadors to answer. We already have several thousand international supporters ready to move through the great work of Jesusa Ricoy at: http://www.facebook.com/events/455836834464701/ and we are grateful for the continued support of our friends at http://www.humanrightsinchildbirth.com/, at http://oneworldbirth.net and the many others who will join us in this campaign. I will get back to you in January with more information. We are also open to your ideas for further events throughout 2013.

Thank you all again for the great support you have given Ágnes throughout the past difficult years, and we look forward to continuing our work together to improve the situation of birthing mothers and the midwifery profession and for the just resoloution of Ágnes’s own personal and professional situation.

With warmest regards
Donal Kerry
International Spokesperson
Campaign for Justice for Dr. Ágnes Geréb Movement.