Budapest police say won't prosecute Pride participants – DW – 07/08/2025
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Hungarian police said that they will not prosecute marchers in the Budapest Pride parade, despite the event being banned. This year's Pride attracted a record crowd, with organizers reporting over 200,000 participants.

Police in Budapest announced Monday that they will not initiate any legal proceedings against participants of the Pride parade that occurred in the Hungarian capital at the end of June, despite the ceremony being prohibited.

The decision from the police came amid fears that those who took part could face fines and with organizers facing up to a year in prison.

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Pride parades are held across the globe in support of LGBTQ+ rights. Budapest police said in a statement that this year’s organizers created public uncertainty about the event’s legal status.

Among them was Budapest’s liberal mayor, Gergely Karacsony, who declared Pride an official municipal event and argued this renders the government’s ban irrelevant.

According to the law in Hungary, municipal and state occasions are exempt from public assembly decisions.

In a statement on Monday, Budapest police said that they would not initiate any legal proceedings as participants came to believe that the march was legal due to comments by organizers and due to the participation of the municipal government.

Karacsony has been under police investigation for four days, with organizers of prohibited gatherings under threat of up to one year in prison.

Right-wing populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbandescribed the event as “repulsive and shameful” and accused the EU of orchestrating the march.

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  • Novamdomum@fedia.io
    24·
    2 days ago

    Historically, once a popular movement had taken to the streets in large numbers, a dictatorship’s only move used to be ultra-violence. Now, in a hyper-connected world they have to do a much more detailed cost/benefit analysis. So, the pride march was in defiance of the governments wish not wishing for a different government. Basically, this didn’t rise to the level of an existential crisis for the leadership so they are pulling back and using PR to deal with the image issue. The real cost for them, I suspect, is that now there’s precedent, so the next pride march may have an easier time. Let’s hope so 🌈

    • huppakee@feddit.nlEnglish
      9·
      1 day ago

      Lets hope so indeed, but unfortunately there is a lot of space between ultra-violence and no-doing-anything. The government could still have gathered info that it might use later when there are less journalists watching.

  • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.spaceEnglish
    18·
    2 days ago

    Hopefully this is like the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989: the tipping point when the authorities realise that they no longer have authority.

    • shapesandstuff@feddit.orgEnglish
      8·
      2 days ago

      Fingers crossed although it seemed more of a legal debacle. Police is investigating the mayor, not the participants, as they believe the public had been misinformed

  • Cris@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    2 days ago

    It feels like part of the reason for this might be that legal punishment would be, in terms of the optics, damning.

    Even authoritarians need social buy in, and when it would be too unambiguous that the exclalated purely in pursuit of violence and oppression, they loose social support they need.

    I don’t know much about the situation in Hungary but I wonder if that plays a role in things.

    • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      8·
      2 days ago

      Not really, in fact Orbán is losing support because he didn’t crack down hard enough from the far right. The leader of the party Orbán was pursuing has reported the police to the police for not stopping Pride.

      They don’t fine people because they literally can’t, tbe underfunded system can’t handle fining 400000 people and then appeals and everything.

      Also, it’s legally ambiguous because for attending to be a crime, the police has to order you to disperse at the scene, which didn’t happen.

  • Greyghoster@aussie.zoneEnglish
    7·
    2 days ago

    What’s with all these right wing jokers, everything they don’t like is a conspiracy by someone they want to use as a scapegoat? Can’t shit happen by itself?