Hungary prosecutes Budapest mayor for organizing Pride March despite ban – JURIST

The Budapest 5th and 13th District Prosecutor’s Office brought charges Wednesday against Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony for organizing the June 28 Pride March that violated the police’s prohibition order.

The charge accused Karácsony of calling on the public to participate in the Pride March through his social media platform, even though he knew of the police ban and did not challenge the ban in court. The prosecution is seeking to impose a fine on Karácsony without a criminal trial.

In a social media post, Karácsony admitted to the facts of the charges. However, he added that the charges would not stop him from expressing his opinions and standing up for freedom. In another post on Thursday, Karácsony said he would insist on going on trial and state his belief that love and freedom can neither be banned nor punished.

The charge was based on the March 2025 legislation and an April 2025 constitutional amendment that banned LGBTQ+ public events. Hungarian national authorities banned the Pride March, scheduled for June 19, 2025, contending that it was necessary to protect children. Authorities also reasoned that maintaining public order required the Pride March to give way to an anti-LGBT+ assembly because they served contradictory purposes, and the Pride March organizers had notified the authorities at a later date. In his letter to EU officials, the Hungarian Minister of Justice Bence Tuzson reiterated that the court upheld the ban and Karácsony had not challenged the ruling, thereby implicitly accepting the legality of the ban.

Notably, the European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly held that legislation banning Pride events and “homosexual propaganda” are not compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights, citing cases concerning Poland, Russia and Lithuania.

In response to the charge, Cristian González Cabrera, Senior Researcher at Human Rights Watch, urged the EU Commission to stand with Hungarians and seek an interim suspension of the March 2025 legislation. He went further to urge European leaders to proceed with the procedures under Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union to suspend Hungary’s EU membership rights for the protection of Hungarians’ democracy and fundamental rights.

In March 2025, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights described the legislation as “arbitrary and discriminatory restrictions on the rights of LGBTIQ+ individuals to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and privacy.” In May 2025, 20 EU member states urged Hungary to revise these discriminatory laws, which they considered as “contrary to the fundamental values of human dignity, freedom, equality and respect for human rights, as laid down in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union.”