Tens of thousands march in the first Budapest Pride since Viktor Orbán was voted out
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PBS News By — Justin Spike, Associated Press Justin Spike, Associated Press BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Tens of thousands of people gathered in soaring temperatures in Hungary's capital on Saturday to celebrate the 31st annual Budapest Pride, the first such LGBTQ+ march since former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who had sought to ban the event, was ousted in an April election.
The march began Saturday afternoon as temperatures reached at least 38 C (100 F) amid a record-breaking heat wave that has gripped most of Europe. Organizers distributed water bottles to marchers, and the city's public water utility opened fountains along the route. Participants set off from Budapest's iconic Opera house and wound through the city center before crossing the Erzsébet Bridge over the Danube River.
Members of Hungary's LGBTQ+ community and masses of supporters danced to music and waved rainbow flags. Luca Új, who was participating in her third Pride event, said she felt the mood at the march was more relaxed now that Orbán's government, which implemented numerous anti-LGBTQ+ policies during its 16 years in power, had been defeated. "There used to be a lot of tension.
But now I see people as being somehow happier, and there are more older people, too," she said. WATCH: How Hungary's vote to oust Viktor Orbán could have global implications Saturday's Pride march came a little more than a year after Orbán's nationalist-populist government passed legislation and a constitutional amendment to outlaw the event, drawing criticism from human rights groups and politicians across the European Union. Yet in open defiance of the ban, last year's Pride went on as planned and was the biggest in Hungary's history, with organizers estimating attendance at over 350,000.
The massive turnout for the march, which the government for months had insisted would no longer be permitted, was seen as a major blow to Orbán's prestige.
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