The ban imposed by the law passed by the Hungarian Parliament in March was not enough to dissuade almost 200,000 people, according to the organisers, from marching through the streets of Budapest (Hungary) on Saturday 28 June to defend the rights of LGBTQI+ people. This is the largest mobilisation since the Hungarian ‘Pride March’ of the 1990s.
The text adopted in the spring, stemming from the 2021 child protection legislation, opposes any gathering likely to expose minors to homosexuality or trans identity.
Participants could face fines of up to €500 and organisers up to a year in prison, so a surveillance system with facial recognition was introduced.
As reported by AFP, the ecologist mayor of Budapest, Gergely Karácsony, circumvented the ban by declaring the event a civic gathering organised by the city.
Although police surveillance was stepped up, the event went off without a hitch.
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (Fidesz-MPSZ) described the march as a “disgrace” in an interview posted on Facebook, after suggesting on Friday 27 June that “legal consequences” could apply. The government also accused the opposition of “breaking the law with foreign support”, according to AFP.
Some 70 MEPs took part in the march. In a statement, the Social Democrat (S&D) group condemned “a clear demonstration of authoritarianism” and called for Article 7(2) of the TEU to be activated. The Greens/EFA hailed this “historic Pride”, and said they would not let up in the pressure to defend “our existence, our dignity, our rights and democracy”, according to a statement by French MEP Mélissa Camara, while Renew Europe denounced a “desperate attempt by an autocrat to cling on to his electorate” seeing the march as an “act of protest, resistance and unity”.
The absence of a delegation from the European People’s Party at the demonstration was noted by several MEPs present, as reported by our Euronews colleagues. Maria Walsh (Irish) was also present.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, made her views known on 26 June (see EUROPE 13668/27) in a video statement published on the X social network. Present at the international conference on human rights (see EUROPE 13669/20), the European Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management, Hadja Lahbib, had travelled to Budapest the day before the event to meet NGOs, but did not take part in the march.
Also the day before, several European LGBTIQ+ rights organisations, ILGA-Europe, Forbidden Colours, Reclaim EU, EL*C and OII-Europe, had issued a joint statement accusing the European Commission of inaction. “Budapest Pride could have been legal and safe. The European Commission chose otherwise”, they said, pointing to a lack of support and the absence of “requests for interim measures to the Court of Justice of the EU to obtain the suspension of the law” in the face of months of requests from civil society organisations and Member States. (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)