Hungary’s House of National Assembly voted to ban LGBTQI pride marches Tuesday. The law imposes fines on organizers and attendees of pride marches, citing child protection as the justification of the law. The parliament swiftly adopted the bill, one day after it was tabled in the parliament.
Following the enactment, a protest took place outside the parliament, forming a blockade of the building. The opposition party also used colored smoke in the parliament, protesting against the ban.
The ruling party submitted the bill to the parliament on Monday, seeking to prohibit events violating child-prohibiting statutes and to authorize police to use facial recognition technology to identify participants. The legislation prevents the organizers from conducting marches by imposing a maximum fine of 200,000 forints (approximately $550). The proposal also stipulates that the imposed fine must be used for child protection purposes, the fine cannot be substituted with community service.
The legislature also agreed to review the bill with the “exceptional procedure” on Monday. According to section 61 of the National Assembly’s Rules of Procedure (Házszabályi Rendelkezések), the parliament can adopt a law without debate and decide on the deadline for amendment proposals and the final vote, exempting itself from the general timeframe. This procedure, however, can only be invoked four times per semester.
Amnesty International criticized the bill for violating the right to equality and peaceful assembly. Director of Amnesty International Hungary, Dávid Vig, said:
This law is a full-frontal attack on the LGBTI community and a blatant violation of Hungary’s obligations to prohibit discrimination and guarantee freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. On the eve of the 30th anniversary of Budapest Pride in June, this harmful ban turns the clock back three decades, further undermining the hard-won rights of LGBTI people in Hungary. It is unfortunately just the latest in a line of discriminatory measures taken by the authorities that targets and stigmatizes LGBTI individuals and groups.
“Despite the proposed amendment to the law, we plan to hold Budapest Pride,” the organizers told Reuters, adding that the Pride March is needed more than ever. Budapest’s liberal mayor, Gergely Karacsony, pledged on Facebook to protect the right to protest.
The bill aligned with the general anti-LGBT policy direction adopted by the ruling party. In 2021, Hungary banned the “promotion of homosexuality” to those under 18. In a speech delivered in February, Prime Minister Viktor Orban asserted that pride marches should not occur this year, even though the organizers vowed to proceed despite the proposal.
Hungary’s anti-LGBT policy direction has attracted criticism from the international community. In 2022, the European Commission sued Hungary for anti-LGBT discrimination in the EU’s Court of Justice. In 2023, over 30 countries called on Hungary to protect the rights of LBGTQ+ people in the country.
