HUNGARY – A Budapest Court has overturned a police decision to deny permission for Budapest’s Pride march.
Hungarian police had earlier banned this years Pride festival in the nation’s capital, citing that it would cause too much traffic disruption.
The event had originally been approved and organizers had applied for an extension to the march route to take it by the parliament, where marchers wanted to protest against Hungary’s new constitution, which includes a ban on gay marriage.
Organizers had agreed to stop the march short of parliament, but were then told that permission for the whole event had been withdrawn.
March organizers claimed that the decision was politically motivated and went to court. The Budapest Metropolitan Court subsequently overruled the Police decision to ban the march.
Boris Dittrich, acting director of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights program at Human Rights Watch said, “The court’s decision was a victory not only for the community of lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender people, but for the right of all Hungarians to freedom of assembly.”
Budapest Pride has suffered from violence in the past and has been heavily guarded by police in the last two years.
