Orbán's Fidesz party submits bill to ban Pride march
UPDATE: MPs from the ruling party proposed that the bill be debated under the extraordinary procedure, and the motion was quickly passed. Accordingly, the consolidated debate, the decision on the summary amendment and the final vote will take place on Tuesday 18 March 2025.
Tuesday's agenda, available on the Parliament's website, already includes the final vote on the bill.
According to the proposal to amend Act LV of 2018 on the right of assembly in relation to the protection of children and related acts, the following would be added to the act:
It is prohibited to hold an assembly that violates the prohibition specified in the Act on the Protection of Children.
Anyone who holds or attends such a meeting by deceiving the authorities commits an offence and
may be fined which shall be enforced as a public debt to be collected by way of taxes and the amount so collected shall be used for the protection of children.
According to the proposal, if the offender fails to pay the fine within 30 days, "it shall be recovered by way of taxes if there is no possibility of commutation to imprisonment and it has not been redeemed by community service or if this law excludes redemption by community service".
The proposal also describes how organisers and participants would be identified, namely that It police can use face recognition cameras to identify people who attend the event in which participants march down Andrassy Avenue, a wide street in Budapest's city centre.
"In order to establish the identity of a person suspected of committing an offence, if the perpetrator is unknown, the court, the criminal authority, the body conducting the preliminary investigation may use the facial analysis activity of the body conducting the facial analysis activity, as defined in the Law on the Facial Analysis Register and the Facial Analysis System."
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said at the end of February that Pride should not even bother to organise the event this year. Festival organisers, who say it poses no threat to children, responded by saying that freedom of assembly was a constitutional right. Facing an unprecedented challenge from a new, upstart opposition party, Tisza, Orbán has stepped up his attacks on the media and LGBTQ+ people since US President Donald Trump took office.
Budapest's liberal mayor Gergely Karácsony said in a Facebook post that the Pride march will be held this year and will maybe be bigger than ever.
Hungary introduced a Child Protection Act in 2021; the European Commission started infringement proceedings a year later. This is an anti-LGBTQ+ law, which according to the complainants restricts rights by censoring inclusive sex education, equating LGBTQ+ lifestyles with paedophilia, blocking adoption for LGBTQ+ couples and restricting content in media and advertising. LGBTQ+ children's literature must be wrapped in plastic or the bookshop faces heavy fines.
Cover image (for illustration purposes only): Getty Images
