Later this month, police prohibited Hungary’s annual Pride march, which prompted liberal Mayor Gergely Karacsony to respond defiantly.
“Budapest city hall will organise the Budapest Pride march as a local event on 28 June, Period,” said the mayor.
It’s the most recent development in a game of cat and mouse that confronts Hungary’s LGBTQ population and its sympathizers, with some legal support from the courts, against nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz administration, supported by the local police.
Orban’s announcement in February that this year’s Pride march would not be held and the subsequent passage of a rule prohibiting gatherings if they violated child protection regulations on the public promotion of homosexuality have cast doubt on the annual event.
