Hungary’s Orbán Defends Banning Pride Ahead Of March
By Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Europe Bureau Chief reporting from Budapest, Hungary
BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Tensions were rising Friday as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán warned there would be “legal consequences” for organizing or attending a Budapest Pride march in violation of a police ban on the event planned for this weekend.
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema is among numerous European leaders and politicians attending Saturday’s rally, her spokesperson told the Worthy News Europe Bureau in Budapest.
The 30th edition of Budapest Pride is meant to promote LGBTQ+ rights and protest Orbán’s policies.
Hungary’s parliament, in which Orbán’s right-wing Fidesz party has a significant majority, passed legislation in March that created a legal basis for police to ban LGBTQ+ marches, on the grounds “that protecting children would supersede the right to assemble.”
It also lets police use facial recognition cameras to identify people who attend and impose fines and possible prison terms.
Critics view the move to ban Pride as part of a broader crackdown on democratic freedoms ahead of a general election next year, when Orbán faces a strong opposition challenger, seen by recent opinion polls as pulling ahead.
The liberal mayor of Budapest, Gergely Karácsony, has argued that the Budapest Pride march can go ahead as it is organized as a “municipality event.”
POLICE BAN
The police disagree, citing Orbán-backed “child protection” laws. Additionally, the prime minister had said that organizers of Budapest Pride “should not even bother” holding the rally this year.
However, advocacy group Amnesty International has condemned the police ban, while an anti-Pride protest was expected to be held Saturday.
“A petition has been presented to the Hungarian police headquarters by Dávid Vig, the director of Amnesty International Hungary,” the group told Worthy News in a statement.
“The petition has been signed by more than 120,000 people and calls on the police to respect, protect, and facilitate the right to peaceful demonstration.”
More than two hundred Amnesty International staff from seventeen different country sections are taking part in the march, Amnesty International added. “Among them is Agnès Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary general.”
Ahead of Saturday’s march, the president of the European Union’s executive European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, urged Orbán to allow the Budapest Pride march.
Orbán condemned the request, saying in his weekly radio interview that it reminded him of receiving orders from Moscow in communist times.
REMEMBERING MOSCOW
“Just like Moscow, she regards Hungary as a subordinated country and she thinks she can order Hungarians from Brussels how to live, what to like, what not to like,” Orbán stressed.
Yet Orbán, a close ally of U.S. President Donald J. Trump, said he would not like to see violence being used against those participating in the Budapest Pride march.
“We are adults, and I recommend that everyone should decide what they want, keep to the rules… and if they don’t, then they should face the clear legal consequences,” Orbán told state radio.
He said police could disperse a banned event, but Hungary was a “civilised country”, and the police’s task was to convince people to follow the law.
Orbán’s government promotes a strongly Christian-conservative agenda, including traditional family values, and has passed several laws that critics say negatively impact the lives of LGBTQ+ people.
Under his government, the constitution, known as the Fundamental Law, was amended to include that “Hungary protects the institution of marriage as the association between a man and a woman and the family as the basis for the survival of the nation,” effectively excluding same-sex marriage.
“The foundation of the family is marriage and the parent-child relationship. The mother is a woman, the father is a man,” the constitution says. The constitution adds that “Hungary protects the right of children to self-identity according to their sex at birth and provides an upbringing in accordance with the values based on Hungary’s constitutional identity and Christian culture.”
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