“No one is safe if Budapest Pride can be banned,” mayor warns
The issue of the Budapest Pride is the issue of the whole of Europe, “because if a European Union member state can ban the Pride March, no European citizen can feel safe,” Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony told an international press conference ahead of the Budapest Pride event scheduled for Saturday.
Banning the Budapest Pride is the crowning of a tendency of the past 15 years, “when the government kept fighting with spectres of enemies… It has always pointed the finger at the current enemy against whom they needed to protect Hungarians. So far, those enemies have been homeless people, refugees, the EU, George Soros, and now, members of sexual minorities are in the crosshairs,” Karácsony said.
This time, however, “civil society, Budapest citizens and Hungarian voters want nothing to do with this ban. An overwhelming majority of … mainly Budapest citizens don’t agree with banning Pride.”
Karácsony said the issue had become a European one, “this is about how no one may be a second-rate citizen in Hungary, and that Hungarian citizens may not be second-rate citizens in the EU. The municipal council is organising this year’s march and we call it Budapest Pride…” he said.
In a show of “marvellous international solidarity”, public figures of some 30 countries, MEPs, politicians and mayors will attend the event, he said.
Hadja Lahbib, the European Commissioner for Equality, said “all eyes will be on Budapest on Saturday … the event is bigger than one Pride Parade… It is about the right to be who you are, to love who you want…” “We all joined our Union not just because of the market, not just because of interests, but because of the values we share. The values of freedom, tolerance and inclusion,” she said.
“My message is very clear: it is not acceptable to think that LGBTQI people are not the same or don’t have a right to equal values…” Those rights must be protected when they are tested or when progress is being curbed, she added. The EU is developing a new LGBTIQ strategy, to be prepared by the end of the year, she said.
The Vice President of the European Parliament, Nicolae Stefanute, said he was representing over 70 MEPs who had come to Budapest to express their solidarity. Stefanute said the EU was not pushing propaganda. “The right to assembly, this is a basic right of what is called a democracy.” The police has a duty to protect participants, he added.
Responding to a question, Karácsony said Saturday’s event was “filling the gap of the Budapest Pride but isn’t equivalent to it.” “People will come to the Pride in their soul, but this is a municipal event, so not subject to the assembly law,” Karácsony said. “The police will have only one task, to ensure the safety of the attendees,” he said. At the same time, he said, far-right players, “encouraged by the government’s evil policy,” might be louder than usual, he warned.
Karácsony said ruling Fidesz had grasped that “they had made a fatal political error when they tried to ban the Pride.” He said he personally guaranteed that those attending the municipal event on Saturday would face no repercussions.
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