Budapest Pride Parade Was Bigger Than Ever, Despite Orban’s Ban

Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s party enacted the ban, but Budapest’s mayor allowed the event to go on. The police sat on the sidelines. 

A government ban on Hungary’s annual Pride parade backfired on Saturday when more than 100,000 people marched through the Hungarian capital, far more than have taken part in previous such events. 

Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Friday warned people to stay away from the banned parade, threatening “clear legal consequences” for anyone taking part. Government warnings, however, only turned what is usually a low-key event attended by a few thousand L.G.B.T.Q. activists and their friends into a mass rally against Mr. Orban’s government. 

In March, Mr. Orban’s party rushed legislation through Parliament that amended the right of assembly to make it illegal to hold gatherings like Pride parades, under an earlier law banning material that “propagates” homosexuality. Participants in such gatherings faced fines of nearly $600 apiece, while organizers risked imprisonment of up to a year. 

The ban came as Mr. Orban and his party, Fidesz, were getting increasingly nervous about the rising popularity of Peter Magyar, a conservative opposition leader. Fidesz officials and party-controlled media outlets demanded that Mr. Magyar take a stand on Budapest Pride, setting what many saw as a political trap designed to out him as a closet liberal soft on child protection. 

To prevent Mr. Orban’s government from derailing this year’s Pride parade, an annual fixture since 1995, Budapest’s liberal mayor, Gergely Karacsony, recast it as a municipal event celebrating Hungary’s recovery of full freedom when Soviet troops pulled out in June 1991. He allowed it to go ahead, renamed as Budapest Pride Freedom. 

The authorities still insisted it was illegal and have threatened the mayor with jail, though they gave permission to an anti-gay march planned for Saturday by a far-right party. 

The police watched the Pride parade from the sidelines but, by late afternoon, had made no effort to halt the flood of people surging through central Budapest.

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