\n<\/p>\n
Campaigners in a Romanian city have vowed to go ahead with a Pride march after local authorities denied permission for the fourth consecutive year.<\/p>\n
Since 2023, campaigners in the western city of Oradea, which has a population of about 180,000, have sought permission to hold Pride events. However, each year they have faced opposition, making Oradea the only major city in the EU where local authorities have repeatedly blocked Pride marches.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery year the local authorities have managed to find legal or technical excuses to ban Oradea Pride events,\u201d said Iulian Di\u021biu, the co-founder and president of Ark Oradea, the local organiser of Pride.<\/p>\n
In 2024, they were told none of the city\u2019s parks were available at the times requested, he said. The following year, campaigners submitted 12 potential routes for the march, only to be told that none was suitable.<\/p>\n
In the run-up to Saturday\u2019s proposed march, organisers submitted more than 100 possible routes. On Wednesday, the city authorities said none of them was viable because they clashed with other events or public infrastructure works.<\/p>\n
The mayor, who belongs to a party that describes itself as liberal, conservative and Christian democratic, did not respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.<\/p>\n
Di\u021biu said the repeated refusals sent a broader message. \u201cIt feels like the message that they are trying to send our way is that we\u2019re not welcome here,\u201d he said. \u201cThey have never said out loud that they are banning Pride for LGBT reasons. They\u2019re always hiding behind technical reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n
The dispute has attracted growing international attention. More than 152 organisations from 30 countries have signed a statement calling on officials to allow the march to take place \u201cin complete safety\u201d and in line with EU law.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter four consecutive years in which the Pride march has been unable to take place, there can be no question of administrative or logistical difficulties,\u201d the statement said. \u201cWhen an authority consistently prevents a community from assembling peacefully, a principle that concerns all citizens is undermined.\u201d<\/p>\n
Their appeal, delivered recently to the local administration in Oradea, drew comparisons between Oradea and Budapest, where Hungary\u2019s former prime minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n and his rightwing populist movement had sought to ban Pride events.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn recent years, the restriction of Pride marches has become, in several European states, an indicator of democratic backsliding and the weakening of the rule of law,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
Di\u021biu said organisers intended to proceed with the march on Saturday despite the lack of official permission, repeating last year\u2019s approach.<\/p>\n
In 2025, between 500 and 600 people attended an unauthorised march, with nine participants later fined the equivalent of about \u20ac4,000 (\u00a33,420) he said.<\/p>\n
This time representatives from several diplomatic missions have said they will take part, along with Romania\u2019s ombudsman, he added.<\/p>\n
Di\u021biu described the situation as both \u201cencouraging and disappointing\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe institutions that are supposed to protect the rights of every community are trying to use our community as a scapegoat. But many more people are behind us. Many more people understand what the stakes are,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not an LGBT issue. This is a democratic issue. It\u2019s about the freedom to public assembly. And if the local LGBT community here in Oradea can be denied this basic human right without any repercussion, it can happen pretty much anywhere in Europe, for pretty much any community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Campaigners in a Romanian city have vowed to go ahead with a Pride march after local authorities denied permission for the fourth consecutive year. Since 2023, campaigners in the western city of Oradea, which has a population of about 180,000, have sought permission to hold Pride events. However, each year they have faced opposition, making<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[3042,1485,1882,11244,15193,1823,9534,25061,1834,4334,637],"class_list":{"0":"post-51401","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-blocked","9":"tag-city","10":"tag-event","11":"tag-march","12":"tag-organisers","13":"tag-pride","14":"tag-romania","15":"tag-romanian","16":"tag-row","17":"tag-vow","18":"tag-years"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}