The 2020 Budapest Pride can be held in August, instead of the original July date which was postponed due to the coronavirus epidemic. In addition, according to some press reports, the police also ruled that this year’s Pride logo featuring the Holy Crown does not violate the crown as a national symbol, because the organizers did not change anything on the crown itself.
The police ruled this week that Budapest Pride can be held in August. The original date was early July, however, it had to be postponed due to the coronavirus epidemic and restrictions on mass events. The new date is August 22nd, and after consulting with the police, organizers announced on Facebook that the event can be held without restrictions. For this, the condition was the resolution of the state-of-emergency, as of last week.
This year, the Pride month (which traditionally starts in June, but also slips into August this year due to coronavirus), is not only commemorated by the Hungarian LGBTQ community, but also by the capital. Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony wrote a special greeting for the occasion in the LGBTQ community’s HUMEN magazine. In his greeting, the mayor talked about the law making gender change impossible and asked people to support the community by talking, reading, and learning about issues affecting the community.
Even though Pride can go ahead without restrictions in August, there are already some disputes surrounding the event. As we reported earlier this week, the Szent Korona (Holy Crown) Radio station filed charges against the organizers of ‘Budapest Pride,’ because they chose the Holy Crown as their coat of arms for this year’s Pride events. On the posters, the Holy Crown is depicted with a rainbow for the LGBTQ community. According to Szent Korona Radio’s announcement: “to depict the sacred, Christian Holy Crown in this way is a provocation and grave desecration of the crown.”
Szent Korona Radio Files Charges for This Year’s Pride Logo Featuring the Holy Crown
However, according to an article by pro-government site PestiSrácok, the police ruled that the logo for this year’s Budapest Pride does not violate the Holy Crown as a national symbol because the creators did not change anything on the crown itself. In their statement, Szent Korona Radio emphasized that according to the relevant passages of the Penal Code, “anyone who uses the national anthem, flag, coat of arms, or a term insulting or degrading the Holy Crown in public or otherwise – if no other serious crime was committed – shall be punishable by a term of imprisonment of one year.” But according to the police, the Holy Crown depicted without change does not meet this criterion, and that the fact that the rainbow background violates the individual value system of many is not a reason to establish suspicion of a crime.
featured photo: Márton Mónus/MTI