(28 Jun 2025)
RESTRICTIONS SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Budapest – 28 June 2025
1. Various of crowd marching across a bridge over the Danube
2. Various of Pride participants singing and dancing
3. SOUNDBITE (Hungarian) Blanka Molnár, Pride participant:
"It’s such a great feeling that for weeks tension has been rising and I also thought that (the government) could make it impossible to hold, and that there there wouldn’t be very many people. It’s a fantastic feeling that there’s a much bigger crowd than ever before.”
4. Various of Pride participants singing and dancing
5. SOUNDBITE (Hungarian) Blanka Molnár, Pride participant:
"It’s increasingly important that everyone gives everything they can and that everyone comes out, even those who have never been to Pride before or who weren’t directly affected. This isn’t just about LGBQT+ rights, but also about the right to assemble and about standing up for each other and not allowing the government to oppress us.”
6. Wide of the people chanting
7. SOUNDBITE (Hungarian) András Faludy, Pride participant:
"The whole hysteria that has emerged over the Pride march is damn pathetic. It’s nonsense. I could use an uglier word because I’m extremely angry, but I won’t.”
8. Various of counter demonstrators arguing with Pride participants
9. Wide of police and counter demonstrators with a large banner
10. Mid of police taking away a counter demonstrator
11. Mid of a man waving a rainbow flag
12. Wide of crowd marching in front of police
13. Various of Pride participants singing and dancing
14. Wide of crowd
15. SOUNDBITE (Hungarian) Zsófia Szekér, Pride participant:
"I’m glad that finally so many people came out, because I think we can only achieve change if so many people take to the streets.”
16. Pull out to crowd marching across a bridge over the Danube
STORYLINE:
Around 100,000 people defied a government ban and police orders on Saturday to march in what organizers called the largest LGBTQ+ Pride event in Hungary’s history in an open rebuke of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government.
Marchers gambled with potential police intervention and heavy fines to participate in the 30th annual Budapest Pride, which was outlawed by a law passed in March by Orbán’s right-wing populist governing party.
The march began at Budapest City hall and wound through the city centre before crossing the capital’s Erzsébet Bridge over the Danube River. Police diverted the crowd from its planned route to keep it separated from a small group of far-right counter-protesters, while members of Hungary’s LGBTQ+ community and large numbers of supporters danced to music and waved rainbow and anti-government flags.
One marcher, Blanka Molnár, said it was "a fantastic feeling” that more people had attended the Pride march than ever before despite it being outlawed.
She said it was "increasingly important” for Hungarians, “even those who have never been to Pride before,” to push back against the government’s policies.
"This isn’t just about LGBQT+ rights, it’s also about the right to assemble and about standing up for each other and not allowing (the government) to oppress us,” she said.
The massive size of the march, which the government for months had insisted would no longer be permitted in Hungary, was seen as a major blow to Orbán’s prestige, as the European Union’s longest-serving leader’s popularity slumps in the polls where a new opposition force has taken the lead.
AP video by Bela Szandelszky and Nikolett Csanyi
===========================================================
Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/
You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/f9e00622481f43cc918bc80544dff367
Author: AP Archive
Go to Source
News post in July 3, 2025, 9:06 pm.
Visit Our Sponsor’s:
News Post In – News
