Zsolt Szekeres on the new Hungarian law effectively banning Pride events

We spoke with Zsolt Szekeres, an attorney at the CSF member organisation, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC), about what this law means for Hungarian society.

On 18 March, the Parliament of Hungary passed the most recent in a series of oppressive laws, targeted against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) community. The bill – which was introduced to Parliament in an accelerated procedure and was cleared in one day – created a legal basis for a future ban on any Pride march in the country. This monstrosity is a serious and vile attack on the freedom of assembly, a core value of the rule of law and has implications far beyond the struggle for equality for the LGBTQ+ community.

The bill amended the Act on Assemblies, creating a new legal basis for the police to ban any Pride march.

A new section made a direct reference to the infamous 2021 law banning the ‘display and promotion’ of homosexuality and gender identities different from that assigned at birth – or, in short: ‘LGBTQ propaganda’.

The Prime Minister and his allies have since parroted the well-known and often discredited idea that LGBTQ visibility is a threat to children’s mental and psychological health, and they need to be protected from the ungodly scenes that transpire at a Pride March.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán fears that simply creating a legal basis to ban Pride will not deter the tens of thousands who regularly march for equal rights.

He thus added a price tag to Pride: participating at a demonstration aiming at the promotion of homosexuality and transgender identities will now be a misdemeanour (petty offence) and can be punished by a financial penalty up to 500 euros. To better enforce the penalty, the Police will be given new powers to use facial recognition technology where a suspicion of a misdemeanour arises.

This is a serious and alarming step which has much wider implications than Pride. The police gaining the right to deploy facial recognition to track down and punish any minor offence is a serious breach of the right to privacy and is in violation of the law of the European Union as well.

One needs not be too creative to imagine what a government with little to no regard to the rule of law can and will do with such a power.

Attending any demonstration, from now on, may be considered risky: if the police can identify attendees, many may think twice about attending, especially in a country where the free expression of political opinion is increasingly sanctioned. The possibility itself is enough to create a chilling effect of damaging the free flow of ideas and opinions - which is an elemental threat to democracy.

This is textbook authoritarianism: find a controversial social group, label them as a threat, create laws oppressing them which please a large chunk of society and then use your new laws to undermine the rule of law.

While Orbán may be a creative man, he is not the first - and will not be the last - who came up with this idea. Demonising minorities and styling yourself as the defender of a cause, whether it’s normality, Christianity, national greatness, children or family values, is a populist strategy deployed from Russia to the United States with alarming levels of success.

Against such shameless abuse of power, what can civil society do? A great deal, actually. When the Hungarian government introduced its LGBTQ propaganda act in 2021, attendance to Budapest Pride peaked, and the country’s first Pride march outside the capital was organised in the city of Pécs. Human rights organisations, like the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, have worked hard to ensure legal protection for those organising and participating in these demonstrations.

It will not be different this year either – and yet, this year, everything will be different.

While Budapest Pride has, in recent years, started to resemble those in Western European capitals, this year serves as a firm reminder that Pride is inherently a protest.

We do not yet know exactly how the police will want to execute Orbán’s intention, but we do know this - what is at stake here is everybody’s freedom of assembly. Hungarian civil society needs to stand firm in its commitment to democratic freedoms and needs to send a very clear signal to authoritarians and their aspiring wannabes. Budapest Pride organisers have openly stated that they are not deterred, and the 30th annual Pride March will be held. The Hungarian Helsinki Committee will be there and we will provide legal aid to those who are sanctioned for participating.

Human rights organisations have a multitude of tasks ahead of us: we need to aid our allies at Budapest Pride in their legal challenges.

We need to explain to Hungarians and the world that this new law has severe implications beyond Pride. And we need to emphasise the intolerable human costs of demonising a minority and painting them as a threat to children.

While doing all of this, we need to remain strong and hopeful. At times like this, we are at a high risk of being taken over by sorrow, hopelessness and fear. We need to remain a calm, steady and professional presence which reassures people that the right to assembly is not a threat, but a fundamental human right, and that we will be there if anyone wants to take it away from them. And in all of this, we need to take care of each other, because times like this put a unique pressure on all of us.

By Zsolt Szekeres, an attorney at the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC)