Budapest’s mayor has been questioned by police as a suspect in serving to to organise a banned LGBTQ march within the metropolis.
The occasion passed off on June 28 regardless of warnings of potential authorized repercussions by Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose authorities handed a legislation earlier this 12 months banning the occasion.
Organisers say that regardless of threats of fines, a report 200,000 individuals took half within the rally, which swiftly descended into an anti-government protest.
Carrying a rainbow T-shirt that includes the capital’s coat of arms, Mayor Gergely Karacsony, who appeared at Hungary’s Nationwide Bureau of Investigation on Friday, advised supporters: “Neither freedom nor love will be banned in Budapest”.
If charged and convicted, Karacsony might resist a 12 months in jail for organising and inspiring participation in a banned march.
“They described the accusation. I mentioned that I thought of this to be unfounded and that I’ll lodge a grievance towards it,” Karacsony advised a crowd of some 200 supporters and journalists who had gathered outdoors the constructing the place he was questioned for greater than an hour.
“Neither freedom nor love will be banned in Budapest,” mentioned the mayor, who added: “If it can’t be banned, it can’t be punished.”
Accompanied by his lawyer, Karacsony didn’t reply any questions posed by investigators however as a substitute introduced them with an announcement of his personal.
The annual pleasure march had been doubtful for the reason that authorities handed a legislation in March limiting gatherings in the event that they break little one safety legal guidelines on the general public promotion on homosexuality.
It was the most recent measure from Orban’s authorities concentrating on Hungary’s LGBTQ+ neighborhood.
In 2020, Hungary abolished its authorized recognition of transgender individuals, and in 2021, the federal government handed a legislation banning the depiction of homosexuality to under-18s.
Regardless of the ban, the mayor stood in defiance, vowing: “Budapest metropolis corridor will organise the Budapest Pleasure march as an area occasion on 28 June,” and argued that police couldn’t legally ban a municipal occasion.
Final month, police introduced they might not take motion towards attendees who might have confronted fines of as much as €500 (£427; $586) for attending the Pleasure parade.
Nonetheless, Hungary’s Nationwide Bureau of Investigation, which is tasked with investigating critical and complicated crimes, mentioned it had launched a probe towards an “unknown perpetrator” accused of organising the rally.
