The Mayor of Budapest says he is proud to face the charges of leading the Pride parade

Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony remains in contempt after being charged with a crime for his role in organizing his city’s Pride parade last summer in violation of Hungarian law.

Police have been investigating Karacony since the June 28 march went ahead despite a Pride ban imposed by Hungary’s right-wing nationalist government.

“I went from being a proud suspect to a proud defendant,” said the mayor, who did not respond to an interview request from the CBC, in a statement posted on his Facebook page.

“Because it seems that this is the price that must be paid in this country if we fight for our freedom and that of others.”

Parade was ‘extraordinary’

Despite the ban, organizers say hundreds of thousands of people took part in Budapest’s 2025 Pride parade, protesting Hungary’s anti-2SLGBTQ+ laws.

Among them was Ciarán Cuffe from Ireland, co-chairman of the European Green Party, of which Karacony is a member.

“There was an incredible sense of empowerment to walk the streets of Budapest with 200,000 other people in a city and a country where there was, indeed, a crackdown on freedom of speech,” Cuffe said. As It Happened hosted by Nil Köksal.

“It was a strange experience.”

Karacsony was charged with organizing an illegal assembly despite a prohibited order, the Budapest Chief Prosecutor’s Office said.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ruling party passed a law in March 2025 that banned Pride events and allowed authorities to use facial recognition devices to identify attendees.

Orban’s government says Pride violates children’s rights to moral and spiritual development. A constitutional amendment last year declared that these rights take precedence over other important protections including the right to peaceful assembly.

Karacson tried to avoid the ban by registering the Pride march as a municipal event, which he argued did not require a permit.

The police, however, forbid this, saying that it is under the law to protect children.

Prosecutors said Karacsony defied a police order by “publishing repeated calls to the public to participate in the meeting, and then leading the meeting.”

Karacony did not dispute the prosecutor’s description of events.

“That’s exactly what happened,” he wrote.

The prosecutor recommended that Karacony face a fine without guilt. But the mayor says he wants to go to court.

“I will never accept them, or give up the idea that in our country it would be a crime to stand up for freedom,” he wrote.

“I will never tolerate this, and despite all the threats and all the punishments, I will fight against it, because when people who want to live, to love, to be happy are betrayed by their country, betrayed by their government, resistance is a duty.”

Cuffe says laws that restrict freedom of assembly and speech are inherently anti-democratic.

“I think what you saw on the march in Budapest were not only those who fight for gay rights, we also saw those who promote democracy,” he said.

He says his party stands behind Karacsony, who sees him as a bulwark in the fight against the rise of the opposition in parts of Europe, citing Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico as examples.

“We are very proud of Expressihe gave to the people of his town,” said Cuffe.

Hungarians go to the polls on April 12.