On the afternoon of October 12 in Bratislava, a 19-year-old man posted a call for violence against LGBTQI and Jews on the Internet. In the evening, he killed two young people in front of a gay bar. The culprit, the son of a far-right politician, returned home and then committed suicide. In Hungary, such crimes fortunately did not occur. However, racist and homophobic organizations have regularly disrupted LGBTQI events.
Budapest, the capital, almost alone hosts bars, discos, clubs, baths and cultural spaces for LGBTQI people. We contacted a dozen of these places by email, as none publicly provide a phone number. Some replied that they had not complained about any incident and others promised to call us, without finally following up. Homosexual people confide, on condition of anonymity, that individuals leaving these places often suffer derogatory remarks or threats. The owners of these places prefer to keep these incidents silent or risk frightening some of their customers and encouraging homophobes.
Burnt Rainbow Flag
Viktoria Radvanyi, president of the Budapest Pride association, confirms this supposition and evokes about fifteen attacks in the last three years. One of the best known took place in September 2019, when far-right activist Gyorgy Budahazy landed with a dozen accomplices in order to disrupt an event organized at the Aurora Klub. [célèbre établissement budapestois]. The gang disrupted the party with a blaring stereo and shouting homophobic slurs, then they flushed a dead rat down the toilet. The police arrived half an hour later, although they did nothing for a long time to prevent anti-LGBTQI outbursts. Radvanyi sums up the embarrassment of the police: “In this kind of