Challenge to Gay Pride ban

Police should revoke their decision to ban the annual Gay Pride march through Budapest on 7 July, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday. The US-based non-governmental organisation was the latest to join a chorus of condemnation of the move.

The Rainbow Mission Foundation, which organises the annual event, announced last week that its request to march from Heroes’ Square to Parliament had been refused. Police said they could not ensure the free flow of traffic along alternative routes during the proposed event.

A researcher at Human Rights Watch dismissed this explanation. Lydia Gall, who covers Eastern Europe and the Balkans, noted in a statement posted online that other events have used the same route recently. Among them was a pro-government “peace march” in January in which an estimated 100,000 took part (the government claimed 400,000). The organisers of the Gay Pride event are expecting around 1,500.

“This is a flimsy pretext to stop lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from exercising the same rights as everyone else,” Gall said.

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee, another civil-rights non-governmental organisation, had expressed similar concerns on Sunday. Amnesty International and local liberal parties the Democratic Coalition and Politics Can Be Different also criticised the decision by Budapest Police Headquarters.

The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union lodged an official request on Monday for a court review of the ban. A similar police ban on last year’s Gay Pride march was ruled unlawful and the event was allowed to go ahead. Two-metre-high metal fences and heavy police presence along the route were necessary to prevent anti-gay protesters from disrupting the event.


(2012-04-18/budapesttimes)