Protesters rally for the fourth week against Hungary’s law banning LGBTQ Pride events

BUDAPEST, Hungary — Thousands of protesters rallied for the fourth week in Hungary’s capital on Tuesday, denouncing a new law passed by populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s nationalist government banning LGBTQ Pride events.

The legislation, fast-tracked through parliament in March, prohibits events depicting homosexuality to those under the age of 18 and has drawn comparisons to Russia’s anti-LGBTQ policies. It comes as Orbán’s administration is increasingly accused of democratic backsliding ahead of national elections next year.

The weekly protests in Budapest have persisted, and on Tuesday, demonstrators filled the Erzsébet Bridge over the Danube, demanding the withdrawal of the law. Some planned to remain on the bridge throughout the night and said there were plans to shut down all five central Danube bridges.

No violence was immediately reported.

The law makes it an offense to hold or attend events such as Pride, which some legal experts and human rights groups say is Orbán’s latest crackdown on Hungary’s LGBTQ community and an arbitrary restriction on the right to assembly.

Viktória Vajda, one of the protesters, said the time for trying to find common ground with Orbán’s government “has passed.”

“If we don’t stand up for the rights of minorities and for our own fundamental rights, then who will when they come for us?” she said. “We’ve reached the point where we have to stand up and say, ‘No more’.”

The protests have defied police orders to disperse from bridges and main thoroughfares in Budapest. And in a rare instance of a street protest outside the Hungarian capital, several hundred demonstrators in the eastern city of Miskolc also protested on Tuesday against the law.

Orbán, who critics say has eroded Hungary’s democracy and overseen widespread corruption, has in recent years taken aim at the country’s LGBTQ community, prohibiting same-sex adoption and — in a 2021 “child protection” law — banning any LGBTQ content including in television, films, advertisements and literature that is available to those under 18.

As part of the new law, authorities may use facial recognition tools to identify those who attend prohibited events — such as the popular Budapest Pride, which draws tens of thousands each year — and can issue fines for violators of up to 200,000 Hungarian forints ($545).

Orbán’s party is pushing for a constitutional amendment next week that will codify the ban on public LGBTQ events. The Hungarian leader has also pledged to introduce new legislation that will ban demonstrators from blocking traffic on bridges and busy roads, arguing the right of assembly and expression cannot override the rights of commuters.

János Stummer, a member of the opposition Momentum party who was at the protest, said that while the ban on Pride was harmful to members of the LGBTQ community, the law is also about “Orbán unilaterally, arbitrarily deciding which events can be held in this country and which cannot.”

Orbán’s government argues that it’s protecting children from “sexual propaganda.”

But with Orbán’s party lagging in polls, critics views the legislation as part of a broader effort to scapegoat sexual minorities and mobilize his conservative base.