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Hungary’s parliament has passed a law that may ban the annual Pride marches for the LGBT+ community within the country.
In protest, opposition to Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party, set off plumes of vibrant smoke bombs and dropped leaflets of Orban and Vladimir Putin kissing.
Orban proposed an amendment to the Assembly Act on the grounds that Pride marches are harmful to children.
This bill passed today and has been received with widespread condemnation, with opponents hitting out that this can be a slippery slope towards the dissolution of democracy.
It might also impose fines on organisers and participants of £422 in addition to use facial recognition software to discover attendees.
Orban hinted in February that his government would take steps to ban Budapest Pride.
Budapest Pride said in an announcement: ‘This is just not child protection, that is fascism.
‘The federal government is attempting to restrict peaceful protests with a critical voice by targeting a minority. Subsequently, as a movement, we are going to fight for the liberty of all Hungarians to show.’
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Dávid Vig, Director of Amnesty International Hungary, reacted to the news and said: ‘This law is a full-frontal attack on the LGBTI community and a blatant violation of Hungary’s obligations to ban discrimination and guarantee freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.
‘On the eve of the thirtieth anniversary of Budapest Pride in June, this harmful ban turns the clock back three many years, further undermining the hard-won rights of LGBTI people in Hungary.
‘It’s unfortunately just the newest in a line of discriminatory measures taken by the authorities that targets and stigmatises LGBTI individuals and groups.
‘The Hungarian president must not sign this bill into law and authorities must as an alternative be certain that LGBTI individuals are capable of freely express their identities in addition to organise and take part in public events.’
European human rights groups have previously condemned the Orban government for its repressive stance against minorities.
The European Union’s executive commission filed a case with the EU’s highest court in 2022 against Hungary’s 2021 child protection law.
The law bans the ‘depiction or promotion’ of homosexuality in content available to minors, including in television, movies, advertisements and literature.
It also prohibits the mention of LGBT+ issues in class education programmes, and forbids the general public depiction of ‘gender deviating from sex at birth’.
The European Commission argued that the law ‘discriminates against people on the premise of their sexual orientation and gender identity’.
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