About 10,000 people, including leading officials from Left wing political parties and supporters from other countries, held a parade here Saturday under police protection, as conservative groups tried to disrupt the march.
Police barred belligerents from entering the space reserved for the LGABTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning) community before the march from Hungary's parliament building, along one of the capital Budapest's main streets, to a park where organisers addressed the marchers and invited them to participate in a picnic, Xinhua reported.
Various groups claiming to represent "family values" held counter-demonstrations along the parade route, becoming violent as the paraders arrived at the end point, setting fire to a Rainbow Mission banner and breaking through police lines.
Police used tear gas to quell the disturbance, arresting two demonstrators and demanding IDs from another 29. Paraders appeared unperturbed.
Reporters for the website Origo.hu said they believed the counter-demonstrators were one and the same group, moving from one venue to another.
Parade participants walked with balloons and carried the flags of the roughly 20 countries whose officials assured the demonstrators of their support. This included multiple EU members as well as the US, Canada, Australia, Israel and Norway.
The far Right Jobbik party called the parade a provocation against majority society but did not organise any direct opposition, albeit the party held a public meeting just before the parade and posted an "illegal" sign on the parliament building declaring that "parliament rejects deviant propaganda".
The theme of the parade was 'Budapest Pride: 365,' meaning that participants were striving for acceptance through the year, not just on this day.
Dominika Milanovich, spokesperson for the parade, said that they were demanding equal rights, objecting to government definitions of "family".
"We currently live in a country where hate-mongering politics has superseded partnerships and cooperation," she said.
