Hungary’s populist right-wing government is pushing to ban the country’s decades-old Pride march in Budapest – as part of Prime Minister Victor Orban’s increasing crackdown on LGBT+ rights.
The ruling Fidesz party submitted a bill to parliament on Monday to ban the pride parade which has been held in Budapest for three decades, and impose fines on organisers and anyone else attending the event.
Mr Orban’s party wants to ban the march, which is due to celebrate its 30th birthday in June, by claiming it violates Hungary’s controversial “child protection” legislation, which prohibits the “depiction or promotion” of homosexuality to under-18s.
Hungary’s “child protection” law was passed in 2021. Aside from banning the “depiction or promotion” of same-sex relationships in content available to children and young people – including in television, films, advertisements and literature – it also prohibits the mention of LGBT+ issues in school education programmes, and forbids the public depiction of “gender deviating from sex at birth”. That followed a bill passed in 2020 that effectively banned same-sex couples from adopting children.
“The proposed bill amends the law governing the right of assembly by stipulating that it is banned to hold an assembly that violates the ban set out in the law on the protection of children,” the latest legislation says.
Last week, The Fidesz party submitted proposed amendments to the constitution seeking to emphasise the protection of children’s physical, moral and mental development over any other right, paving the way for the pride ban.
In February, Mr Orban said organisers should not even bother to plan the event this year, saying in a speech it would be a “waste of time and money”.
Gergely Gullyas, the minister in charge of Mr Orban’s office, said there would be “no Pride in the public form in which we have known it in recent decades”, adding the Fidesz party believed Hungarians “should not tolerate Pride marching through the city centre”.
Organisers are yet to comment on the new legislation, which says police will use facial recognition cameras to identify people who attend the event.
Before the introduction of legislation, the Pride organisers vowed to go ahead with the march, saying the prime minister should focus on improving daily life in Hungary rather than going after the LGBT+ community.
“They’ve tried countless times to ban our march—and failed. They won’t succeed now either. In the end, Pride is a demonstration, whether with twenty people or tens of thousands, but it will happen,” the organisers wrote last month.
“We’re not just fighting for the Budapest Pride March or the LGBTQ community—we’re fighting for the right of all Hungarians to protest, speak their minds, and stand up for themselves.”
