”The city of Budapest will organize the pride parade in Budapest on June 28. Period”, writes liberal Gergely Karácsony on Facebook according to the news agency AFP.
The message comes after the police in Hungary announced that they will stop the parade, referring to the laws that were passed earlier in the spring and which in practice mean a ban on public gatherings organized by hbtqi groups.
Mayor Karácsony, who is in opposition to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's conservative government, believes, however, that the police are wrong, since it is the city itself that is the organizer.
Thus, the rhetoric is stepped up another notch ahead of the parade, which several heavy EU politicians have promised to participate in, to show their support for human rights and freedoms.
When the rule of law situation in Hungary was debated in the EU Parliament on Wednesday, the government received scathing criticism from the left and the center, but also from the Christian Democratic conservative party group EPP.
–Orbán is obviously afraid, desperately trying to silence the opposition and ensure that he and his corrupt inner circle can cling to power, said Swedish member Tomas Tobé (The Moderate Party) on behalf of EPP.
