Hungary

With the rainbow flags flying high, tens of thousands of Hungarians LGBTQ and their supporters went to the streets of Budapest for a parade of pride, challenging a prohibition of the government and the legal threats of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán against the activists.

The organizers of the 30th edition of The Pride March in the Hungarian capital said that more than 100,000 people marched from the Budapest City Council and grew through the city center before crossing the Erzsébet bridge of the capital over the Danube river.

“This is much more, not just homosexuality, … This is the last moment to defend our rights,” Eszter Rin Bodi, one of the protesters, told Reuters.

“None of us is free until everyone is free,” said a sign.

Police diverted to the crowd of their planned route to keep it separate from a small group of extreme right counterprotestors.

Orbán’s populist party in March quickly accelerated a law through Parliament that let it be a crime to celebrate or attend events that “represent or promote” homosexuality to children under 18. Orbán before made it clear that Budapest’s pride was the explicit objective of the law.

The recent Hungary Law allows authorities to use facial recognition tools to identify people who attend a forbidden event. Being trapped could result in fines of up to 200,000 Hungarian Forints ($ 586). The organizers face up to one year in prison.

But on Friday, the organizers of pride, together with the mayor of Budapest Gergely Karáscany, the European Commissioner Hadja Lahbib and the vice president of the European Parliament Nicolae Stefanuta, said that the march will take place on Saturday despite the official threats of strong fines for the participants and even the time of the prison for the liberal mayor.

“The government is always fighting an enemy against which they have to protect the Hungarians … This time, sexual minorities are the goal,” Karáross told a press conference. “We believe that there should be no first and second class citizens, so we decided to support this event.”

The participants on Saturday remained challenging.

“I am proud to be gay … and I’m very afraid that the government wants to knock us down. I am very surprised that there are so many people that I want to cry,” a 66 -year -old participant told News, who only gave his first name, Zoltan.

A woman told News themezone that BBC was attending because she wants a country of “diversity” for her children.

“We have a law that prohibits people who are different from others to meet. That’s why we are here. Because it is harming our rights. That’s why we came,” said Luca, 34.

She told the BBC that she is worried about the future of her 4 -year -old daughter who lives “in a country where he can’t love anyone who wants.”

Critics of the prohibition of pride and other Hungarian legislation aimed at LGBTQ+ communities say policies remind of similar restrictions against sexual minorities in Russia.

Orbán, seen as the closest ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin in the European Union, has prohibited same -sex adoption in recent years and has banned any LGBTQ+content, even on television, movies, ads and literature that is available for minors.

His government argues that exposure to this content negatively affects children’s development. But opponents say that movements are part of a broader effort for scapegoat of sexual minorities and consolidate their conservative base.

In statements to the state radio on Friday, Orbán minimized the possibility of violent clashes between the police and the participants, but warned that attending pride “will have legal consequences.”

“Of course, the police could break such events, because they have the authority to do so, but Hungary is a civilized country, a civic society. We do not hurt ourselves,” he said.

It is expected that more than 70 members of the European Parliament, as well as other European countries, participate in the departure of Saturday.

Lahbib, the European commissioner, said Friday that “all eyes are in Budapest” as pride protesters challenge government prohibition.

“The EU is not neutral in hate,” he said. “We cannot remain liabilities. We cannot tolerate what is intolerable.”

Counter

On Thursday, the radical party on the right, our movement of the country announced that it had requested the approval of the Police to hold assemblies in numerous places in the city, many of them on the same route as the Pride March.

A neo -Nazi group said it would also meet on Saturday at the Budapest City Council, from which the progress of pride will leave. The group declared that only “white men and women, Christians, heterosexuals” were welcome to attend their manifestation.

A woman, who only gave her first name as Katalin, told News on Saturday that she agreed with the ban, although she hoped there would be no clashes.

“Disgustingly … It has become a fashion to show ourselves,” he said.

• Hungary
• LGBTQ+