Mayor of Budapest Gergely Karacsony was questioned on Friday by the Hungarian authorities for his role in organizing the banned Pride march in the city. The event was banned by the government, but eventually almost 200,000 people attended.
Prior to his interrogation, Karacsony told his supporters that “neither freedom nor love can be banned in Budapest.” According to the mayor, the interrogation was politically motivated and he refused to answer the questions of the police, writes the Hungarian news site Telex. Instead, Karacsony shared his own statement, his lawyer said.
The celebration of the Hungarian LGBTQIA+ community was banned by the radical right-wing government of Viktor Orbán and the police. According to the government, this was necessary to protect children from exposure to homosexuality.
Orbán’s ban caused angry reactions in other European countries. For this reason, dozens of international politicians came to Budapest at the end of June for the Pride march, including seventy Members of the European Parliament. A group of Dutch MPs from VVD, GroenLinks/PvdA, D66 and Volt and the Mayor of Amsterdam Femke Halsema were also present.
Partly due to all the attention, according to the organization there were about 180,000 to 200,000 participants this year. This made it by far the busiest edition ever of Budapest Pride. The previous record was 35,000 participants.
Karacsony states that his interrogation is a prelude to the campaign for the parliamentary elections scheduled for April 2026. Fidesz, Orbán’s party, hopes to defend its majority in parliament. But the party is behind in the polls to the center-right Party for Respect and Freedom (Tisza). The opposition party gained momentum when Peter Magyar, a prominent member of Fidesz, switched to Tisza.