Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban prohibited the display of symbols “referring to or promoting” sexual minorities on government buildings, hours before the 30th Budapest Pride festival formally opens on Friday (June 6, 2025).
The nationalist leader has been rolling back LGBTQ rights in the name of “child protection” for years and this year his governing coalition adopted legal changes aimed at barring the annual Pride march.
The parade is the culmination of the weeks-long Budapest Pride Festival, and this year it is scheduled to take place on June 28, despite the ban threat.
A fresh decree signed by Orban and published in the government’s gazette late Thursday (June 5, 2025) said that “symbols referring to or promoting different sexual and gender orientations or the political movements representing them may not be placed on buildings” connected to the government or the central bank.
The Prime Minister’s office stressed it is a “symbolic” decision, because displaying such symbols was “not common practice on government buildings”.
