Budapest mayor says city will organise Budapest Pride, circumventing Orban's legislation
BUDAPEST, June 16 (Reuters) - The city of Budapest will organise Hungary's Pride march by the LGBTQ community on June 28 as a municipal event celebrating freedom, Budapest's liberal mayor said on Monday, in a move to circumvent a law that allows police to ban LGBTQ marches.
Hungary's parliament, in which Prime Minister Viktor Orban's right-wing Fidesz Party has a big majority, passed legislation in March that creates a legal basis to ban LGBTQ marches, citing protection of children. It also lets police use facial recognition cameras to identify people who attend.
Pride organisers have said the 30th Pride march in Budapest would proceed despite the new legislation, and on Monday Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony said in a video that the city would team up with organisers. The mayor added since the march will be a municipal event - a celebration of freedom - "no permits from authorities are needed."
Karacsony said Budapest's history was about freedom and solidarity.
"In this city, there are no first- or second-class citizens. In this city we know that we can only be free together," he said. "So in this city, neither freedom, nor love can be banned, and the Budapest Pride cannot be banned either."
Government spokesperson Zoltan Kovacs did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Orban, who faces a challenging election in 2026, pushed through constitutional changes in April stipulating that Hungary recognises only two sexes, male and female.
His government has a Christian conservative agenda and its intensifying campaign against the LGBTQ community has aimed to please Fidesz's core voters, mostly in the countryside.
Orban has said organisers "should not even bother" organising Pride in Budapest this year.
Over the past 15 years of Fidesz's dominance, Orban has appealed to conservative Hungarians who believe their country is in a struggle to protect its Christian identity - from Muslim immigrants to what they call "gender and LGBT ideology" allegedly foisted on the central European country by Brussels.
His government's anti-LGBT campaign escalated in 2021 when the Fidesz-dominated parliament passed a law banning the use of materials seen as promoting homosexuality and gender change at schools, citing again the need to protect children.
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