In the latest in a long line of attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, politicians in Hungary have voted to ban Pride events. This is the first law of its kind in recent EU history.

The new legislation – which passed on Tuesday by 136 votes to 27 – will allow authorities to impose fines on organisers and attendees, and to use facial recognition technology to identify anyone who takes part. The Hungarian government is justifying the ban on the grounds that Pride events violate its pre-existing Propaganda Law, which prohibits “the depiction of promotion of homosexuality” to under-18s.

According to the organisers of Budapest Pride, the Hungarian government is using the LGBTQ+ community as a scapegoat in order to restrict peaceful protests more widely, and will eventually use this legislation to target other groups and movements. “When pride organisers and participants stand up for their own freedoms, they are standing up for the rights of all Hungarians,” they said in a statement. “It is a new level of fascism when only those who support those in power are allowed to march in the streets of a country.” As the bill pasts, opposition party members let off a smoke bomb inside parliament as an act of protest.

Amnesty International has also condemned the new law as a “full-frontal attack” on LGBTQ+ people and a blatant violation of Hungary’s obligations to guarantee human rights. “The spurious justification for the passing of this law – that events and assemblies would be ‘harmful to children’ – is based on harmful stereotypes and deeply entrenched discrimination, homophobia and transphobia. The Hungarian president must not sign this bill into law and authorities must instead ensure that LGBTI people are able to freely express their identities as well as organize and participate in public events,” Dávid Vig, director of Amnesty International Hungary, said in a statement.

Under the leadership of Victor Orban – a right-wing populist who some experts describe as a dictator or at least an autocratic, due to his attack on democratic institutions, manipulation of election laws and iron-clad control of the media – Hungary has introduced a number of anti-LGBTQ+ measures in the last decade. It has defunded gender studies programmes at universities; restricted the sales of LGBTQ+ themed children’s books; made mpossible to discuss LGBTQ+ people positively in the media; effectively banned adoption for gay couples and ended legal recognition for trans people, including those who have already transitioned.

This hard-line approach has won Orban high-profile conservative admirers across Europe and the US, including Donald Trump, and JD Vance, many of whom look to Hungary as an ideal society based around traditional values and a model for how to destroy “wokeness”. No doubt these people will be looking at Orban’s latest move and wondering what they might be able to get away with.

The organisers of Budapest Pride, however, are undeterred. “We are at home, we will be here, and we will work to make Hungary a freer country,” they say. The 30th Budapest Pride March will go ahead as planned on June 28.