Budapest Pride parade attracts more than 100,000 marchers after government ban
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban did his best to stop the annual Pride march going ahead in Budapest yesterday, but his efforts backfired.
The march was widely reported to have seen its biggest ever turnout, becoming a rallying point for people concerned about freedom of assembly as well as LGBTQ+ rights.
Estimates put turnout at between 100,000 and 200,000 people, with striking images showing crowds flow across the Danube over the Elisabeth Bridge with barely space to wave a flag.
The controversy turned what was usually a more lowkey event with perhaps tens of thousands attending into a huge political rally, attracting attention across the EU.
On Friday, Orban threatened 'clear legal consequences' for anyone joining the march, but police stayed on the sidelines after the liberal mayor of the city allowed the march to proceed.
Pride marches have been banned in the country since early 2025, when Hungary passed a law restricting the freedom of assembly by connecting it to a previous law from 2021 prohibiting children seeing public portrayal of 'divergence from self-identity corresponding to sex at birth, sex change or homosexuality'.
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I call on the Hungarian authorities to allow the Budapest Pride to go ahead.Without fear of any criminal or administrative sanctions against the organisers or participants.To the LGBTIQ+ community in Hungary and beyond: I will always be your ally. pic.twitter.com/Wz0GBFRz8C — Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) June 25, 2025
The ban allows people organising or taking part to be fined, and allows police to use facial recognition software to identify them.
To allow the march to go ahead, the city's mayor Gergely Karacsony renamed it as Bupadest Pride Freedom, casting it as celebrating the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary in June 1991. More Trending
More than 70 members of the European Parliament were expected at the 30th Pride march.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the EU Commission, urged beforehand: 'I call on the Hungarian authorities to allow the Budapest Pride to go ahead. Without fear of any criminal or administrative sanctions against the organisers or participants. To the LGBTIQ+ community in Hungary and beyond: I will always be your ally.'
Pro-government media cast a negative light on the events, with daily newspaper Magyar Nemzert using the headline 'Chaos at Budapest Pride' focusing on traffic disruption, and accusing the organisers of being globalist puppets.
Event organisers said: 'The main message of the jubilee Budapest Pride is: we are here! We are at home in Hungary, and we are at home in Europe. Solidarity across borders shows: Europe has not forgotten the Hungarians. There are a lot of people who care that Hungarians can once again live in a democracy and under the rule of law.'
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
MORE: Why 'big hairy' Welsh miners led London Pride in 1985
MORE: I never expected my one-night stand to pursue me after our casual fling
MORE: 54 years of groundbreaking LGBT TV that shaped what we watch today
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The Guardian
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Monday briefing: How Budapest Pride became a huge show of anti-Orbán defiance
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As far-right parties surge across the continent and global resistance to sexual and gender freedoms grows, Budapest has become a leading player in Europe's culture wars, and Pride its choicest target. Here's how that happened, and how it played out. How and why has Hungary clamped down on LGBTQ+ rights? Accusations Orbán has weakened the country's democratic institutions, undermined the rule of law and, in Brussels blocked pretty much every common European initiative of which he disapproves, are well known. Perhaps less familiar is the crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights he has led since becoming prime minister 15 years ago. Within a year, backed by a two-thirds parliamentary majority, his government had passed a new constitution banning same-sex marriage, with later changes barring same-sex adoption and legally defining the family unit as heterosexual marriage. 'The basis of the family is marriage and/or the parent-child relationship. The mother is a woman and the father is a man,' it now reads. In 2021, the government went further, passing so-called 'child protection legislation' barring any 'depiction or promotion' of homosexuality or gender change to minors – effectively banning LGBTQ+ people from featuring in school educational materials, films, adverts or TV shows aimed at the under-18s. Earlier this year, parliament passed yet more new legislation, this time amending the country's law on assembly to make it an offence to hold or attend events – such as Pride – that violate the 'child protection' measures, and authorising facial recognition software to identify and fine people in the crowd. Like other populist far-right governments, Ashifa Kassam said, Hungary has 'sought to make the LGBT community a scapegoat, much like migrants. And it's having real repercussions. We're seeing more violence against LGBTQ+ communities, more fear among trans people and suicide rates that are going up. It's a scary trend.' 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The Herald Scotland
3 hours ago
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Brexit destruction - 'stupidest' and 'unhinged' fair enough
It would surely be easy to make the argument that he hit the nail on the head. After all, it is certainly not wise decision-making which is behind a move to cause major damage to your economy. Mr Bloomberg, who was visiting his eponymous company's Dublin offices exactly nine years after the UK's referendum, added of Brexit: 'It's hard to believe how they did it.' It is indeed difficult to believe, as the nightmare continues. Mr Bloomberg's comments evoked memories of what Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli, principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Glasgow, had to say about Brexit in the aftermath of the vote. Sir Anton told the Scottish Government Brexit Summit for Further and Higher Education back in November 2018: 'I've previously referred to our impending exit from the EU as 'the most unhinged example of national self-sabotage in living memory'. 'Nothing has happened in the last few weeks to change that view. Indeed, with the confusion and uncertainty we are seeing every day in Whitehall, if anything my view has only hardened.' This was before former Conservative prime minister Boris Johnson's administration took the UK out of the European single market at the end of December 2020 in a hard Brexit. This folly saw the ending of free movement of people between the country and the European Economic Area and the loss of frictionless trade with the UK's biggest trading partner. Read more So words such as 'unhinged', from Sir Anton, and 'stupidest', from Mr Bloomberg, seem perfectly measured and proportionate in the scheme of things. What is also hard to fathom, based on any economic rationale, is the Labour Government's 'red lines' of not taking the UK back into the European Union, single market, or even the customs union. 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His observation about Sir Keir's administration not wanting to look at the reasons is an astute one. Not only is Labour sticking with its red lines but it continues to refuse to acknowledge the scale of the Brexit damage. My column last Wednesday, noting another finding of the YouGov poll, observed: 'The fact that 56% of those who voted for Labour last July consider rejoining the EU to be the right priority, right now, raises the question of why Sir Keir and his colleagues seem hell-bent on going along with the views of the minority in their policymaking. Labour has made it clear that it is absolutely intent on maintaining its 'red lines', a truly lamentable state of affairs.' Sir Nick said: "Nine years have passed since the United Kingdom voted to leave the European that time, the consequences for the British people have become increasingly stark. This latest polling not only reinforces that - it shows that more and more people see the benefits of much closer ties with the European Union - having felt the pain of Brexit. "Leaving the EU has delivered a sustained and worsening blow to the UK economy - one that is especially pronounced for the small and medium-sized enterprises that form the backbone of our commercial and industrial landscape who are living with the consequences every day. That has made us all poorer, depleted our economy and weakened our country with a thousand tiny cuts.' There is surely much food for thought in these comments, is there not Sir Keir?
