Budapest Pride March Held – Group Of Counter-Demonstrator

(MTI) – This year’s Budapest Pride march was held in the capital on Saturday afternoon.

The 19th Budapest Pride march is the closing event of Hungary’s week-long Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Pride Festival.

Participants gathered for the start of the march in the street in front of the parliament building, waving rainbow flags. MTI’s correspondent at the scene saw banners of the opposition Socialists and E-PM, as well as former Socialist party chief Ildiko Lendvai, E-PM co-chair Peter Juhasz and Hungarian Liberal Party head Gabor Fodor in the crowd.

The participants waved the flags of countries whose embassies supported the event. MTI’s correspondent saw Americans, families, elderly people and youth in the crowd.

About 50 counter-demonstrators from the “In the Name of the Family” Facebook group, led by Zoltan Mihaly Orosz, an independent mayor of the village of Erpatak in northeast Hungary, shouted insults at the Budapest Pride marchers before the event.

Before the march started, Elod Novak, the deputy leader of the radical nationalist Jobbik party, unfurled a banner from the balcony of the parliament building which read “The house does not care for the propaganda of deviants”.

Further along the route of the march, several dozen people dressed in black yelled insults at the participants and threw firecrackers.

Nearby, police surrounded 40-50 counter-demonstrators dressed in black and asked them for identification.

Between 15 and 20 Counter-demonstrators rushed into the crowd at Heroes’ Square, but were immediately pushed back by police who restored the cordon.

The participants marched to the City Park, where participants were addressed by speakers.

European Parliament Vice-President Ulrike Lunacek, who co-chairs the EP’s LGBTQ work group, told the participants that everybody in Europe was entitled to their human rights, regardless of sexual orientation.

Budapest Pride wound up with a picnic and concerts.

The organisers said on their website that more than 10,000 people participated at this year’s event.

The National Police Headquarters communications service told MTI that two people were detained and the identification of a further 29 were checked in connection with the Budapest Pride march. One police officer was lightly injured on the head and brought to hospital, the communications service said.

Photo: MTI – Zsolt Szigetvary