Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights and the groups who work to protect them are under fresh pressure in Hungary. On February 1, an appeals court in Hungary ruled against Labrisz Lesbian Association, saying that an article in a pro-government newspaper likening them to pedophiles did not injure the group’s reputation.
The same week, the ruling party-controlled media regulator Media Council fined RTL Klub, an independent TV station, for running a public service announcement ad produced by leading Hungarian LGBT organization Hatter Tarsasag, featuring LGBT families. In 2020, Labrisz Lesbian Association published A Fairy Tale for Everyone, a book of reimagined fairy tales featuring LGBT characters and themes. The book was the target of homophobic pushback, including from politicians who called it “homosexual propaganda” and from conservatives who sought to have it banned from bookstores. Lawmakers later seized on the controversy to enact a law that bans depictions of LGBT people in school materials or television programs aimed at youth.