AROUND 100,000 people bravely defied a government ban and police orders on Saturday to march in what organisers called the largest LGBT+ Pride event in Hungary’s history in an open rebuke of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government.

Marchers gambled with potential police intervention and heavy fines to participate in the 30th annual Budapest Pride, which was outlawed in March by President Orban’s right-wing governing party.

The march began at Budapest City Hall and wound through the city centre before crossing the capital’s Erzsebet Bridge over the Danube River. 

Police diverted the crowd from its planned route to keep it separated from a small group of far-right counter-protesters, while members of Hungary’s LGBT+ community and masses of supporters danced to music and waved rainbow and anti-government flags.

One marcher, Blanka Molnar, said more people had attended the Pride march than ever before despite it being outlawed. 

She said: “This isn’t just about LGBT+ rights, it’s also about the right to assemble and about standing up for each other and not allowing [the government] to oppress us.”

Mr Orban and his party have insisted that Pride, a celebration of LGBT+ visibility and struggle for equal rights, was a violation of children’s rights to moral and spiritual development.

A law passed in March made it an offence to hold or attend events that “depict or promote” homosexuality to minors underage 18. 

Authorities installed additional cameras throughout the city centre before the march, and were expected to use facial recognition tools to identify individuals who attend the banned event. 

According to the new law, being caught attending Pride could result in fines of up to 200,000 Hungarian forints (£431).

The ban was the latest crackdown on LGBT+ rights by Mr Orban’s government, which has already effectively banned both same-sex adoption and same-sex marriage and disallowed transgender individuals from changing their sex in official documents.