Authorities must allow people to participate safely in Saturday’s Budapest Pride, free from intimidation, harassment or violence, said Amnesty International Hungary as it handed in a global petition to the Budapest Police Headquarters.
The #LetPrideMarch petition, signed by more than 120,000 people from 73 countries, reminds the city’s chief of police that he has a duty to respect, protect and facilitate people’s right to peacefully protest and not to enforce discriminatory laws that infringe on people’s human rights. In April, discriminatory legislation came into force passed that has since been used to ban Pride marches and other protests supporting equal rights of LGBTI people in Hungary.
“This is a defining moment. You must choose to protect human rights and dignity over enforcing a law that silences those demanding equality,” reads the petition.
“We call on you to reject this unjust law, uphold Hungary’s human rights commitments, and ensure that the 30th Budapest Pride march proceeds unhindered and peacefully, free from discrimination, harassment, fear or violence.”
Under the terms of the new law it is ‘forbidden to hold an assembly in violation’ of 2021 legislation banning the ‘depiction and promotion’ of homosexuality and diverse gender identities to people under 18. Under the law, the authorities have the power to use facial recognition technology to identify participants and to fine those who participate in any prohibited assembly. According to the Criminal Code, organizers of an assembly which is banned may risk criminal charges and up to one year imprisonment.
On 17 June, Budapest’s mayor announced that Budapest Pride, which marks its 30th anniversary this year, will go ahead as a municipal event. In response, the Hungarian police issued a ban against the Pride, arguing that such event is an attempt to circumvent the new discriminatory public assembly law. The mayor has said that Pride will go ahead despite the ban.
More than 70 Amnesty International delegates from 17 European Amnesty sections, including, Stephen Bowen, Director of Amnesty International here in Ireland, and the organization’s Secretary General, Agnès Callamard, will join the Pride march on Saturday.
Speaking in advance of travelling to Budapest, Bowen said “I’m sorry to be missing Dublin Pride this year, but when one Pride is under attack, all Prides are under attack, and we need to resist these attacks on our freedom to be ourselves.”
Dávid Vig, Amnesty International Hungary’s Director said “For years, the government has been trying to stigmatize and use illegal laws to make the lives of sexual and gender minorities, as well as organizations and people who stand up for equality, impossible. The unlawful restriction of our right to peaceful assembly is the latest chapter in this process,”
“We will continue to fight alongside and on behalf of all those who want to live in a more rights respecting, free and equal Hungary, and of course we will be there at this year’s Budapest Pride.”