Thousands party at Budapest Pride in clear message to Orban

Budapest promises to be a festive city. On Saturday, the party spread in the streets and occupied, in the scorching heat of the summer, the Elizabeth bridge and the banks of the river and the city center on the two banks of the Danube.

Between 100,000 and 200,000 young people for most young people danced and sang pest in Buda.

A distance that generally takes only 20 minutes on foot stretched at three o’clock.

The ban by Prime Minister Viktor Orban, told me many participants in Budapest Pride, prompted them to attend an event they generally stay away. Last year, only 35,000 participated.

Many banners have made fun of the Hungarian Prime Minister. It was like a peaceful revenge of some of those he declared war over his last 15 years in power.

“In my history class, I learned enough, to recognize a dictatorship. You don’t need to illustrate it – Vik!” Read a banner made by hand. “I am so much bored of fascism,” read another.

The t-shirts with the image of Orban, in a brilliant eyeshadow and lipstick, were everywhere.

While the LGBT community with its lively paraphernalia constituted the heart of walking, the pride of this year has turned into a celebration of human rights and solidarity.

“We don’t really seem to be prohibited!” A radiant mayor of Budapest, Gergely Karacsony, told the crowd, in a speech in front of the technical university of Budapest.

Today’s walking could become the coronation moment of his political career. A hungry town hall and in constant fight with the central government has dared to organize an event that the government has tried to ban and won – at least at the moment.

“In fact, we seem that we do peacefully and freely a great show of big things to a swollen and hateful power. The message is clear: they have no power over us!” Karacsony continued.

Among the participants, there was the Finnish deputy Li Andersson, who estimated that Orban used arguments on family values ​​as a pretext to prohibit walking.

“It is important to emphasize that the reason we are here is not only pride-it is the fundamental rights of all of us,” she said.

The prohibition was based on a new law, adopted by the vast majority held by the Fidesz d’Orban party in the Parliament, subordinating freedom of assembly to a law on child protection in 2021 which assimilated homosexuality to pedophilia, and therefore prohibited the representation or promotion of homosexuality in the places where children could see it.

The police justified a ban on Saturday walking on the ground that children could assist. In response, the mayor cited a 2001 law indicating that the events organized by the councils do not fall under the Assembly.

In the end, the police present at the march kept a discreet presence, sadly looking at a party from which they were excluded.

In another part of the city, Orban attended the graduation ceremony of 162 new police and customs officers, and new officials of the National Directorate for the police of foreigners.

“Order does not exist alone, it must be created, because without it, civilized life will be lost,” Orban told students and their families.

Earlier, he and other officials of the eminent Fidesz posted photos of themselves with their children and grandchildren, in an attempt to recover the word “pride”.

“Publish a photo, to show them what we are proud of,” published on Facebook Alexandra Szentkiralyi, the chief of the Fidesz faction at Budapest Council, with a photo of her in a fairly simple “Hungary” t-shirt.

The police presence was chosen in Budapest on Saturday, but temporary cameras were installed before walking and set up on police vehicles recorded the whole event.

The law of March 18 which tried to ban pride gave the police new powers to use facial recognition software. Fines between £ 14 ($ 19) and £ 430 could be inflicted on participants.

The pro-government media were scathing in his criticism of the events of the day, echoing the remarks of the politicians of the leading Fidesz that walking was a celebration of perversity, without anything to do with freedom of assembly.

“Chaos in Budapest Pride,” proclaimed the Hungarian nation, the flagship product of the government.

“The famous climate activist and more recently the supporter of terrorist Greta Thunberg posted on her Instagram page that she was also in Budapest Pride,” he continued.

“After the demonstration, it will be a question for the courts,” said Zoltan Kiszelly, a political analyst close to the government, to the BBC.

“If the courts decide in favor of the mayor and the organizers (of pride), then Orban can say, okay, we must again change the legislation.”

If the courts decide the government, however, the Prime Minister can be satisfied with the law he accompanied – despite the fact that pride has gone forward.