28-02-2025
Hungary's homophobic ban of the annual Gay Pride march met with defiance
Human rights activists and civil rights NGOs in Hungary have condemned the government's ban on gay pride parades in the country.
After much speculation, the government on Thursday announced that gay pride parades 'will not take place in a public form' this year. It was not explained how a march of thousands of people could be held in a private setting.
It was also stated at Thursday's government briefing that the Gay Pride Day parade, in its current form, will not exist in the future.
"They want people to deal with this now, but we see alongside it the threat and fear-mongering that they are obviously trying to play on in this situation," explained Viktor Szalóki, political director of aHang, a civil society advocacy group.
Viktor Orbán had told the organisers of Budapest Pride in his annual assessment on 22 February that they should not bother preparing this year's parade, describing it as "a waste of money and energy."
According to Viktor Szalóki, this was a kind of "disenfranchisement and a violation of the rights of people who want to freely exercise their right to assembly or expression, and now their rights will be violated".
Since Orban's speech last week, Gergely Gullyás, Minister of the Prime Minister's Office, and János Lázár, Minister of Construction and Transport, have announced that such events would not be held this year, quelling rumours it could be held indoors.
'There will be no Pride in the public form in which we have known it in recent decades. We believe that the country should not tolerate Pride marching through the city centre," Gulyás said at the government's weekly press conference.
"The government's intention is clearly to protect children, and we believe that Pride marching through the city centre, now that the US ambassador can no longer lead it, should not be tolerated by the country," Gulyas added.
Organisers of Budapest Pride, now in its 30th year, have vowed defiance, stating: "There was Pride, there is Pride, and there will be Pride."
"As usual, the Prime Minister was a bit flowery; there was no specific message in his speech," says Zita Hrubi, the press spokeswoman for Budapest Pride.
"Basically, we think that if the law on assembly is tampered with in any way, it would be an admission that Hungary is no longer a democracy."
Sexual minorities have long been a target of the Orbán government. The so-called "Child Protection Act," introduced in 2021, deliberately equates homosexuality with paedophilia, sparking outrage across Europe.
Since 2019, the Hungarian constitution has prohibited same-sex couples from adopting children and defines marriage as only between a man and a woman.
