BUDAPEST — Prosecutors in Hungary have filed charges against Budapest’s opposition mayor, Gergely Karácsony, seeking a court-imposed fine for organizing the capital’s Pride parade last June despite an official ban, authorities said.
The district prosecutor’s office said it had proposed that a court issue a summary judgment without holding a trial, but did not specify the amount of the fine sought. The move escalates a legal battle that has shadowed the city’s record-breaking Pride, which drew an estimated 200,000 people in defiance of government efforts to halt the annual event.
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Karácsony, who leads Budapest’s opposition-led city hall, responded to the charges by calling himself a “proud suspect” turned “proud defendant.” “They don’t even want a trial… because they can’t even comprehend that here in this city, we have stood up for freedom in the face of a selfish, petty, and despicable power,” he wrote on Facebook.
The case follows years of measures by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s nationalist government to curtail LGBTQ rights, framed as “child protection.” After Orbán publicly declared his intention to ban Budapest Pride, his ruling coalition codified provisions into law and the constitution intended to prohibit the parade.
Budapest’s city hall then stepped in to co-organize the event in an attempt to navigate the newly adopted rules. Police nevertheless issued a ban ahead of the march, and the prime minister warned both organizers and attendees of potential “legal consequences.”
Despite the ban, the celebration went ahead and became one of the largest public demonstrations in Hungary in recent years. Organizers said more than 200,000 people took part, recasting the day as a broader show of resistance to the government’s restrictions.
Karácsony, who was questioned by authorities in August, faced potential jail time of up to one year for organizing and urging participation in what authorities deemed a prohibited rally. While participants risked fines of up to €500 for attending, police announced in July they would not take action against marchers.
The prosecutors’ push for a summary judgment keeps the legal focus on Karácsony rather than the crowd. A court could decide the mayor’s liability without a full hearing, a step that would sidestep the type of public trial the mayor has said he welcomes. No timeline for a decision was immediately available, and prosecutors provided no further details.
The Pride case has become a flashpoint in Budapest’s tense political divide, pitting the Orbán government’s conservative legal framework against a city leadership that has cast itself as a defender of civil liberties. With prosecutors now asking a court to impose a fine, the outcome will be watched closely by rights advocates and opposition leaders who see the case as a barometer of Hungary’s political climate as well as its tolerance for dissent.
For Karácsony, the stakes go beyond the penalty itself. The mayor has framed the prosecution as a test of free assembly and free expression in the Hungarian capital — and a marker of whether one of Europe’s largest Pride events can proceed without criminal liability for those who organize it.
It was not immediately clear when the court would rule on the prosecutors’ request.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
