Major turnout as Budapest Pride defies Orban's ban in Hungary
Organisers expect a record turnout of more than 35,000 people for the 30th edition of the Pride march in the Hungarian capital, despite a police ban imposed by Prime Minister Viktor Orban's nationalist government.
"Many, many tens of thousands" are participating, organisers said on social media after the march started, as AFP journalists saw the festive crowd filling squares and streets along the route.
"I am proud to be gay... and I am very scared that the government wants to bring us down. I am very surprised that there are so many people, I want to cry," a 66-year-old participant, who gave only his first name, Zoltan, told AFP.
Orban's governing coalition amended laws and the constitution this year to prohibit the annual celebration, justifying his years-long clampdown on LGBTQ rights on "child protection" grounds.
Orban said Friday that while police would not "break up" the Pride march, those who took part should be aware of "legal consequences".
- Newly installed cameras -
Parade organisers risk up to a year in prison, and attendees can face fines up to 500 euros ($590).
The latest legal changes also empower the authorities to use facial-recognition technology to identify those who take part, and newly installed cameras have appeared on lamp posts along the parade route.
But participants were defiant as the march began chaotically under a scorching sun.
Marchers repeatedly had to pause to wait for police to stop traffic, according to AFP journalists at the scene.
Akos Horvath, an 18-year-old student who came to Budapest from a city in southern Hungary, said it was "of symbolic importance to come".
"It's not just about representing gay people, but about standing up for the rights of the Hungarian people," he told AFP on his way to the march.
Dozens of European lawmakers also attended in defiance of the ban.
"Freedom and love can't be banned," read one huge poster put up near city hall, the gathering point for the march.
Earlier this week, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen called on the Hungarian authorities to reverse the ban, while EU equalities commissioner Hadja Lahbib travelled to Hungary and spoke in support of the parade on Friday.
Thirty-three nations, including most EU countries, have also released a statement in support of the march.
At a press conference Saturday, several French MEPs called on the EU to take tougher measures against Orban's government over the crackdown on civil rights and other rule of law issues.
Budapest's opposition mayor Gergely Karacsony has insisted that no attendee should face any reprisals as the march is a municipal event that does not require police approval.
Some people also gathered along the route to protest against LGBTQ rights at the urging of far-right groups, including by putting up a wooden cross adorned with protest messages.
A woman who gave only her first name, Katalin, told AFP she agreed with the ban though she hoped there would be no clashes.
"Disgusting... it's become a fad to show off ourselves," she said.
- 'Polarising society' -
Since Orban's return to power in 2010, the country of 9.6 million people has been steadily rolling back LGBTQ rights.
But it is the first to ban a Pride march, with Orban saying he has been emboldened by the anti-diversity push by US President Donald Trump.
"Orban is employing a tried-and-tested recipe ahead of next year's election by generating a conflict," political analyst Daniel Mikecz told AFP, saying that Orban was "polarising society".
ros-bg-jza/js
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
End the Pride Parade's hypocritical ban on gay NYPD officers
For the fifth straight year, the folks who run the city's Pride parade banned cops from marching in uniform: Gay officers have to closet their NYPD affiliation to participate. The pretext that NYC Pride's Heritage arm offers is that it doesn't want anyone marching armed, and cops must carry their weapons when in uniform. Yet the issue never proved a problem before Heritage imposed the ban in 2021, at the height of anti-police obsessions after George Floyd's death. Advertisement Nor did anyone complain when NYPD officers responded rapidly Sunday night after two teens got shot near the Stonewall Inn. Plus, of course, armed police guarded the parade itself. 'It is the height of hypocrisy that uniformed officers are fit to line the parade route and keep everyone safe, but they are unable to march in their own uniform and under their own banner,' thundered Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who joined protesting police on the parade sidelines. Advertisement 'The ones being asked to stay out of sight are us, the gay, the trans, the queer, and our allied officers who have risked everything to serve both this city and this community. It is not about safety, it is about exclusion' decried Det. Brian Downey, president of Gay Officers Action League. Get opinions and commentary from our columnists Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter! Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters Blame the way the extremists seem to grab control of almost every left-of-center institution, including supposedly single-issue outfits like the ACLU, or figure it's just part of how the 'unicause' mysteriously demands a single party line on everything from surgically trans-ing kids to denouncing Israel to despising the police. It's still bizarre to see the now-triumphant gay-rights movement refusing to recognize the full identity of LGBTQ cops. Advertisement Somehow, the need to virtue-signal has New York City's central rainbow celebration mired in shame games — though its leaders lack the guts to own up to it. Who had Pride being run by bigots on their Bingo card?
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Polish supreme court ratifies nationalist's presidential vote win
Poland's Supreme Court on Tuesday said it had validated the result of last month's presidential election won by the nationalist opposition candidate, despite numerous appeals over the conduct of the vote. In the country's highly polarised political landscape, concerns had also been voiced over the legitimacy of the court chamber which will issue the verdict. Karol Nawrocki, backed by the Law and Justice (PiS) party, scored 51 percent of votes to win the June 1 runoff election, according to official results -- a major blow for the pro-EU government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk and LGBTQ rights campaigners. Warsaw mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, the candidate put forward by the government, lost out by 369,000 votes in the country of 38 million people. "All of the circumstances clearly demonstrate that Karol Tadeusz Nawrocki garnered more votes than Rafał Kazimierz Trzaskowski during the second round of the vote," judge Krzysztof Wiak announced after a hearing, also confirming the election result. Prosecutors had alleged that the vote count was falsified in Nawrocki's favour at some polling stations, fuelling calls for a national recount. PiS dismissed doubts about the vote as an attempt to "steal the election". According to the Polish constitution, the Supreme Court had to validate the ballot before the winner could be sworn in at a joint session of parliament -- a ceremony planned for August 6. However, European courts and legal experts have questioned the legitimacy of the Exceptional Supervision and Public Matters Chamber, the Supreme Court body that issued the ruling on Tuesday. The European Court of Human Rights said in 2023 that the Chamber does not fulfil the definition of "an independent and impartial tribunal established by law". Justice Minister Adam Bodnar, who is also the prosecutor general, had asked in vain for all of the chamber's judges to be excluded. Tusk has criticised the chamber, but recognised on Monday that "it is the Supreme Court's responsibility to rule whether an election is valid or not". "It is not possible... for the Supreme Court to be replaced in this matter... by the prosecutor general or the government," the prime minister said. - 'Paralyse the Supreme Court' - The Supreme Court had received around 56,000 election protests since the second round of voting. Judges have already dismissed, without taking further action, more than 50,000 complaints, many of which were based on protest templates shared on social media. Supreme Court chief justice Malgorzata Manowska criticised the sending of template-based protests as an "operation meant to... paralyse the Supreme Court". Bodnar complained that prosecutors were not given access to all of the 56,000 protests and suggested that the chamber's examination of those could be nothing more than a "facade". Still, the court ordered the results from 13 polling stations to be recounted earlier this month. National prosecutors later said that in some of those polling stations votes were transferred from one candidate to another, mainly in Nawrocki's favour. Government coalition lawmaker Roman Giertych authored one of the protest templates, claiming that votes had been reassigned to Nawrocki and alleging ballot rigging. Giertych and several experts have demanded a national recount and called for the presidential inauguration to be postponed in order to clarify the alleged irregularities. These experts assert that the previous nationalist government and outgoing president Andrzej Duda introduced reforms which have undermined the rule of law in Poland. The reforms have long put Poland at odds with the European Commission, but the victory of a pro-EU coalition in October 2023 parliamentary elections mitigated the conflict. Parliament speaker Szymon Holownia, like other members of the ruling coalition, has so far firmly rejected the idea of postponing the presidential oath ceremony. Independently, Bodnar has ordered a group of prosecutors to examine "irregularities" in the vote counting. "It is the prosecution's role... to inquire everywhere, where there is a suspicion of crime," Tusk said. sw/dt/jhb/bc/giv
The Hill
4 hours ago
- The Hill
EU's top diplomat urges Iran to resume nuclear talks
The European Union's (EU) foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas urged Iran to resume talks on ending the country's nuclear program while speaking with Tehran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi. 'Negotiations on ending Iran's nuclear programme should restart as soon as possible. Cooperation with @iaeaorg must resume. The EU is ready to facilitate this. Any threats to pull out of the non-proliferation treaty don't help to lower tensions,' Kallas said in a Tuesday post on X. Araghchi and Kallas spoke over the phone on Tuesday. Iran's foreign minister criticized the approach 'some' European countries and International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi took during the recent clash between Israel and Iran. Araghchi did not name the countries. Araghchi told Kallas that the approach of those countries is complicating current conditions and making the path to striking a diplomatic solution more challenging. The United States military hit Iran's three vital nuclear facilities last month as Israel and Iran traded military strikes, an escalation that halted Washington's two-month-long nuclear negotiations with Tehran that were headed by Araghchi and President Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. Trump and his allies have touted the U.S. strikes on June 21 as a successful operation that set back Iran's nuclear program by years and have slammed the leaked intelligence report that stated that the airstrikes delayed Tehran's nuclear program by a few months. Iran's deputy foreign minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi said in an interview on Monday that Tehran is open to holding nuclear talks with Washington if the U.S. agrees not to fire more strikes. 'We are hearing from Washington, telling us that they want to talk. Right now, we are seeking an answer to this question: Are we going to see a repetition of an act of aggression while we are engaging in dialog? They have not made their position clear yet,' Takht-Ravanchi said in an interview with the BBC. Takht-Ravanchi added that Iran has to have the ability to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. Next week, Trump is expected to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, where the two leaders will talk about trade, the developments regarding Israel's war in the Gaza Strip and the aftermath of Jerusalem and Washington's strikes on Iran.
