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Six Hungarian lawmakers have been banned from entering parliament for two months after they disrupted the session Tuesday following the passing of an amendment making LGBTQ+ Pride marches illegal in Hungary.
The lawmakers, from the liberal Momentum party, and independent MP Ákos Hadházy, protested by firing smoke bombs inside the parliament chamber. They disrupted the session after the majority voted with the initiative of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s illiberal government to ban any public gathering that violates its Child Protection Act, which limits access to anything that could “promote or portray the deviation of identity with respect to the sex at birth, gender reassignment or homosexuality.”
Critics have called the law homophobic.
“Basically, we are not surprised,” Momentum’s parliamentary leader Dávid Bedő told POLITICO, as they expected parliament speaker László Kövér, one of Orbán’s close allies, to “hit them with the full force of the party-state.”
They say their main task now is not in parliament but in the streets. “We will continue to organize our resistance there to repeal this shameful law on assembly,” Bedő said.
Bedő and two other lawmakers have been banned from entering Parliament for two months and will have their salaries withheld for six months. Three other Momentum lawmakers were banned from entering Parliament for one month and docked four months’ salary.
Bedő’s fine of more than 24 million Hungarian forints (€60,000) is the highest fine ever imposed on a member of the Hungarian Parliament, and the six lawmakers’ total sanctions reached more than 80 million forints (€200,000).
