A new law banning free assembly by LGBTQ+ people — passed at the direction of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán last week by Hungary’s ultra-right conservative majority — has unleashed a new wave of protests in the country.
On Tuesday, tens of thousands of Hungarians marched through the capital Budapest, blocking major thoroughfares and three bridges in the city center.
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The demonstration was the second within a week since the country’s ruling Fidesz party used a two-thirds majority in parliament to fast-track the law, signaling the government’s latest crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights.
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Lines of police attempted to block the marchers, who chanted, “Democracy” and “Assembly is a fundamental right,” as they poured onto one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares and ignited colorful smoke bombs and blocked traffic.
The law, which passed parliament in a 136-27 vote last week, bans attending or hosting events that involve a “depiction or promotion” of homosexuality if minors might see it. The law stipulates a fine of around $550 for attending such an event and enables law enforcement to use facial recognition technology to track down and detain people who violate the assembly ban.
Opposition members in parliament lit rainbow-colored smoke bombs in the chamber during the vote, before protests erupted later in the day. They also handed out photoshopped pictures of Orbán kissing Russian President Vladimir Putin. Both men have made anti-LGBTQ+ persecution a mainstay of their authoritarian regimes.
The new law is an extension of Hungary’s 2021 “child protection” legislation that bans depictions of homosexuality to people under the age of 18, including any mention of LGBTQ+ people at schools and depictions in the media of “gender deviating from sex at birth.”
In 2020, the government banned legal gender change and amended the constitution to state that “the mother is a woman, the father is a man”, effectively banning adoption and child custody rights for LGBTQ+ people and same-sex couples.
“This is not child protection, this is fascism,” Budapest Pride organizers said in a statement of the latest assault on LGBTQ+ rights.
Demonstrator Paula Antalfy, age 26, said she believed the legislation was “yet another step in the direction of dismantling democracy.”
“I feel like love should be free, and who you love is not a decision in any way,” she told the Associated Press. “That we would not be able to gather like this, as we do now, and stand in our own streets, in our own city, is something I just can’t agree with.”
“This new law has shown how vulnerable our rights are,” gay writer Krisztián Marton, 35, told The Guardian. His own autobiographical novel was recently removed from shelves at a book festival based on the “child protection” law.
“The public mood has been so depressing and hopeless for so long that we withdrew and resigned ourselves to being passive victims,” Marton said. He said new law pushed him to more vocal dissent, stating, “This step has awakened a civic drive in me.”
“I’ve never been to Budapest Pride, but I think it’s normal that people want to show their identity,” said Judit, age 75. She said she attended underground protests in the Soviet era and feels sorry for young people in Orbán’s Hungary.
“I think it’s never been this bad,” she said. “Our youth was at least full of hope that things would get better.”
“We will be on the streets in some form on June 28,” Jojo Majercsik, spokesperson for Budapest Pride, said of the day Pride is scheduled for. “We won’t be deterred or scared.”
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