Police used tear gas and
water cannon last Saturday to disperse riotous crowds intent on attacking
marchers in a gay pride parade.
Over forty arrests were made as right wing demonstrators tried to attack a
march through Budapest
by gay and lesbian groups. A police van was set on fire at Oktogon, a
major crossroads in the centre of the city, and petrol bombs were hurled at the
police during several moves to disperse rioters on Hősök tere.
Three politicians were attacked after participating in a gay rights rally held
at Hősök tere, where the parade ended.
Extremist groups held an officially sanctioned counter demonstration on Liszt
Ferenc tér and a march along the route of the gay pride parade. As members of
gay and lesbian organisations marched along the four kilometres of Andrássy út
from Deak tér to Hősök tere, they were bombarded with eggs, stones, beer cans
and vegetables.
Police used tear gas and pepper spray to subdue the riotous crowd at Liszt
Ferenc tér as the gay parade moved past. Aggressive masked demonstrators hurled
missiles at marchers and policemen as they attempted to break through the
barricade.
Far right activists had been called to arms weeks in advance via extremist
websites, and a massive police presence was in place to keep the expected angry
protesters away from the gay marchers. Two-metre-high metal barricades had been
erected along both sides of Andrassy út to keep agitators out of the path of
the parade.
The participants in the parade - well over a thousand members of gay, lesbian
and transsexual groups, as well as sympathisers - were fully expecting the
attacks. They wore plastic raincoats and carried multi-coloured umbrellas as
eggs, tomatoes and other missiles rained down on them.
Rioters turned on the police at a number of locations. Shortly after 4pm, the
police had to disperse gangs armed with groceries, bottles and stones as they
attempted to intercept the gay marchers at Oktogon. A police van was set ablaze
in the melée, and tear gas and water cannon were used to clear the way for the
parade. Cordons were set up to prevent people from approaching Andrássy út from
side streets.
Not all those demonstrating against the homosexual marchers were masked youths.
Middle aged ladies and pensioners were among those who lined Andrássy út and
chanted "clear off [Prime Minister] Gyurcsány and your queer mates"
and other variations on recent anti-government slogans.
Eight men were arrested in an unoccupied flat on Andrássy út shortly before the
parade began at 4pm, The police announced at 5.30pm that they had found petrol
bombs and glass bottles filled with other substances, including an unidentified
acid, that the men presumably intended to hurl at marchers as the gay parade
passed by.
The marchers had to wait at the end of Andrássy út at around 5.30pm as the
police cleared rioters from Hősök tere, Only then could their planned rally and
concert take place. Over a hundred right wing demonstrators remained outside
the police cordons, heckling and throwing missiles while some four hundred
beleaguered homosexuals defiantly went on with their programme.
The MEP Katalin Lévai and the former SZDSZ state secretary Gábor Szetey - the
first Hungarian politician to "come out" and declare himself
homosexual - were attacked as they left Hősök tere. Lévai explained shortly
afterwards that she and her colleague had been recognized by rioters as they
were being driven away from the square in a police car.
Rioters attacked the car, smashing the windows, but nobody was injured. Lévai
subsequently spoke of "an overwhelming atmosphere of a pogrom or a
lynching" in Budapest.
The SZDSZ politician Gábor Horn was accosted by three rioters just before 7pm
as he walked away from Hősök tere through the Városliget park. His attackers
began by insulting the MP and spraying him with beer before punching him. A
police motorcyclist intervened before Horn was bundled into a police car by two
plainclothes officers and whisked away. Horn said shortly afterwards that he
had not been harmed.
There were numerous reports of undercover police officers, dressed in the
typical nationalist tee-shirts of far-right activists, intervening to prevent
violent incidients.
After 7pm, most of the right-wing demonstrators had been dispersed and the
participants in the gay parade had made their way home, with police remaining
out in force to prevent any further attacks. Hősök tere was left littered with
cobblestones and beer cans. The national ambulance service reported that it had
to attend to five injury cases.
Far-right groups have latched onto the democratic right and infected it: PM
The far right groups that violently
attacked gay rights marchers and police this weekend have latched
onto the fringes of the democratic right and infected it, Prime
Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany told Klub Radio
on Monday morning.
The statement follows a series of attacks on Saturday against
gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals who marched through
Budapest with a police escort calling for "Gay Dignity." Attackers
threw firebombs, rocks, pieces of asphalt, water mixed with faeces,
eggs, tomatoes and acid at marchers and police. The latter responded
with tear gas and arrests.
The graduation of violence began with the tacit approval of the
opposition Fidesz party, grew stronger through street demonstrations
that became violent, and built to the paramilitary Hungarian Guard
organised by the Movement for a Righter Hungary (Jobbik group), he
suggested.
The radicalization of the right has had very damaging side
effects for we have witnessed "the gradual disappearance of
democratic norms … and everyone can be scapegoated. First it was
just the government or the left-wing … then the Jews, then the
Gypsies, then the poor, then the gays, and - eventually - it will be
everyone who thinks differently from this portion of the right
wing," the prime minister said.
Police work exemplary at parade, say organisers
Hungarian police protected the peaceful
demonstrators from the far-right mob at Saturday's Gay Pride Parade
in an exemplary fashion, the event's organiser Rainbow Mission
Foundation said in a statement on Sunday.After the parade, police also successfully protected a gay bar
from attackers, the statement said.
The Rainbow Mission Foundation expressed thanks to Hungarian
police for their highly professional services and wished fast
recovery to those who were injured while protecting the participants
of the parade.
Twelve riot policemen suffered face and leg injuries and two of
them had acid poured on them.
