Hungary’s new law banning Pride events sparks protests

There were protests on the streets of Budapest on Tuesday after a new law was passed banning Pride events and allowing authorities to use facial recognition software to identify those attending the festivities.

More than 1,000 protesters gathered hours after the vote outside Hungary’s parliament in opposition to the measures.

Chanting anti-government slogans, they marched to the Margaret Bridge over the Danube and blocked traffic, drawing a big police presence.

The move by Hungarian MPs is part of a crackdown on the country’s LGBT community by the nationalist conservative party of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump.

The law, supported by Mr Orban’s Fidesz party and their minority coalition partner the Christian Democrats, was pushed through parliament in an accelerated procedure after being submitted on Monday.

Opposing legislators led a vivid protest in the legislature involving rainbow-colored smoke bombs.

The bill amends Hungary’s law on assembly to make it an offence to hold or attend events that violate Hungary’s contentious “child protection” legislation, which prohibits the “depiction or promotion” of homosexuality to minors under 18.

Attending a prohibited event will carry fines up to 200,000 Hungarian forints (£425), which the state must forward to “child protection”, according to the text of the law.

Authorities may use facial recognition tools to identify individuals attending a prohibited event.

The opposition Momentum party called for a protest outside Hungary’s parliament later in the day.

In a statement on Monday after MPs first submitted the bill, Budapest Pride organisers said the aim of the law was to “scapegoat” the LGBT community in order to silence voices critical of Mr Orban’s government.

“This is not child protection, this is fascism,” wrote the organisers of the event, which attracts thousands each year and celebrates the history of the LGBT movement while asserting the equal rights of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.

Following the law’s passage Tuesday, Budapest Pride spokesperson Jojo Majercsik told The Associated Press that despite Mr Orban’s years-long effort to stigmatize LGBT people, the organisation had received an outpouring of support since the Hungarian leader hinted in February that his government would take steps to ban the event.

“Many, many people have been mobilised,” Ms Majercsik said.

“It’s a new thing, compared to the attacks of the last years, that we’ve received many messages and comments from people saying, ‘Until now I haven’t gone to Pride, I didn’t care about it, but this year I’ll be there and I’ll bring my family’.”

The new legislation is the latest step against LGBT people taken by Mr Orban, whose government has passed other laws that rights groups and other European politicians have decried as repressive against sexual minorities.

In 2022, the European Union’s executive commission filed a case with the EU’s highest court against Hungary’s 2021 child protection law.

The European Commission said the law “discriminates against people on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Hungary’s “child protection” law also prohibits the mention of LGBT issues in school education programmes, and forbids the public depiction of “gender deviating from sex at birth”.

Booksellers in Hungary have faced hefty fines for failing to wrap books that contain LGBT themes in closed packaging.

Hungary’s government portrays itself as a champion of traditional family values and a defender of Christian civilisation from what it calls “gender madness”, and says its policies are designed to protect children from “sexual propaganda”.