Charges Dropped Against Budapest Mayor For Pride After Hungary's New PM Took Office
“Those in power did everything they could to intimidate and discourage us. They even threatened us with prison. But we did not back down.”
In January, Mayor Gergely Karácsony of Budapest, Hungary, was criminally charged for organizing an unlawful assembly despite a prohibition order. Hundreds of thousands of LGBTQ Hungarians joined in the protest-slash-parade. As a result, the Budapest Chief Prosecutor’s Office said it would seek to impose fines and deny Karácsony a trial.
But following the downfall of Hungary’s far-right authoritarian leader, Viktor Orbán, who lost the country’s April elections after 16 years in power, the charges against the Mayor were dropped last week.
“Orbán’s proto-fascist Fidesz party lost the election to the center-right Tisza Party, led by [Péter] Magyar,” LGBTQ Nation reports. “Later that month, a European Union (EU) court ruled against Hungary’s ban on LGBTQ+ ‘propaganda,’ saying that it violated Article 2 of the EU Treaty. Article 2 says that the EU is founded on ‘values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.’”
Karácsony is not the only Pride march organizer/attendee whose criminal case was dropped. “In the city of Pécs, prosecutors charged Géza Buzás-Hábel, a teacher and human rights activist, in February with offenses—punishable by up to a year in prison—related to the local Pride march in October 2025,” Human Rights Watch reported of the gay and Roma organizer of Hungary’s “only rural Pride march.”
The Orbán regime also directly influenced and appeared to work with elected officials in states like Florida to craft anti-LGBT policy like the “Don’t Say Gay” law. And Orbán was a featured keynote speaker at CPAC, the largest conservative gathering in the world, hosted in Dallas in 2022.
Hungary has been a flashpoint in the global battle for LGBTQ rights. Its unprecedented rollback of LGBTQ rights as an EU country sent shockwaves across the region. It added a constitutional amendment banning Pride, which was met with fierce and swift blowback: politicians released rainbow smokebombs into the parliamentary hall. And although the Orbán regime said it would deploy AI facial recognition software against Pride marchers, unstoppable crowds of them flocked to Budapest anyway.
“At Budapest Pride, we will continue to stand firm in our support of the fundamental freedoms that everyone is entitled to,” a spokesperson for the event told Erin in the Morning when the Mayor was charged in January. “We stand up for ourselves, we stand up for each other, because we want to live in a free, peaceful and equal country.”
“I refuse to be intimidated or silenced,” Karácsony wrote around that same time in a Jan. 28 post on X. “I will never accept that standing up for freedom, free speech, or love can be treated as a crime. Despite threats or punishment, I will continue to fight. Freedom and love cannot be banned!”
This year, Budapest Pride will march on June 27. Though it still faces government hostility, organizers struck a hopeful chord in statements posted to social media.
“Last year, we showed what we’re made of,” the Budapest Pride Facebook reads. “Those in power did everything they could to intimidate and discourage us. They even threatened us with prison. But we did not back down.”
“Last year, our love of freedom and our courage forced authoritarian power to retreat,” it continues. “But we have not reached our goal yet. As long as even one community in Hungary is deprived of its rights, the whole society lives without them.”
 | A guest post by
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Congratulations to the people of Hungary for all the hard work and sacrifice that made this possible! None of this would have happened without the organizing and incredible efforts that went into getting Orban out. I hope we in the US can get inspired to do the same!
Viktor Orbán spent years attacking the LGBTQ community, stripping away rights and using fear and division as political weapons. Donald Trump has followed a similar path, doing everything he can to undermine LGBTQ Americans, particularly transgender people, through executive actions, federal policies, and relentless political attacks.
Hungary is now beginning to move away from some of Orbán's discriminatory policies as political change and European Union human rights obligations exert pressure for reform. Unfortunately, the United States does not have the protections of the EU framework. What we do have is the power of our vote.
Elections matter. If we want a country that respects equality, dignity, and freedom for all people, we must elect leaders who will defend civil rights rather than attack them. I remain hopeful that the upcoming elections will move our nation toward greater inclusion, fairness, and justice for every American.