Hungary's parliament approves homophobic censorship law

Hungary's parliament has approved a bill that restricts young people's access to information regarding homosexuality and transgender issues.

On Tuesday, 157 members of parliament from the ruling right-wing nationalist Fidesz party and the right-wing Jobbik party, which is part of the opposition, voted in favour of the bill.

One unaligned leftist lawmaker voted against. Otherwise, lawmakers from the left and liberal parties walked out of the chamber before the vote in protest against the law. The Hungarian parliament has 199 seats.

The law provides for a ban on books, films and other content carriers that are accessible to children and young people and in which sexuality is depicted that deviates from heterosexuality.

In addition, any kind of advertising in which homosexuals or transgender people appear as part of normality is to be banned.

Critics see this as an effort to introduce homophobic censorship along Russian lines into the EU country of Hungary. 

The provisions are part of a legislative package that also includes stricter penal provisions for sexualized violence against children and young people. It also provides for the creation of a so-called "paedophile register."

'Prejudice against minorities'

The law is considered a special concern of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whom critics accuse of fomenting prejudice against minorities.

Orban has already attracted attention in the past with statements that critics classify as xenophobic and homophobic.

The Orban government justified the package of laws with the desire to protect the "right of children to their gender identity received at birth."

Associations of the LBGT community and human rights organizations condemned it as discriminatory and encouraging censorship. It would "trample on the rights of homosexual and transgender youth," they said in their statements.