Big Trouble In Little Budapest

International News, By Christian Taylor, 4th July, 2008

A gay sauna in Budapest, the capital of Hungary in Eastern Europe – has been attacked with petrol bombs. It’s the second homophobic petrol bomb attack in a week – the other was on a local gay club.

Sauna staff extinguished the flames promptly with fire extinguishers. Only one sauna patron was injured, due to the fumes. The bombers had called the sauna before the attack, telling those inside to get out. The club that was attacked last week received a similar warning.

The attacks have the city’s gay community scared that more violence will occur this weekend at their annual gay pride march and LGBT Film and Cultural Festival.

Gay rights activists in the city say that despite promises made by police, they doubt that gay establishments are really being protected.

It is believed that “an extremist nationalist hate site targeted against gay people, liberals and Jewish people” is responsible. According to Pinknews.co.uk, they communicate using the website kuruc.info and even though this is a Hungarian site, its hosted on a server in America, so local activists are unable to fight it. Last week the site posted a list of all the gay bars in Budapest. Within hours, the first bar on the list was on fire.

Police are expecting trouble at this weekend’s pride march, which takes place on Saturday. Last year a gang of ultra-nationalists, skinheads and fascists threw eggs, beer bottles, smoke bombs and molotov cocktails at the marchers, and also yelled phrases such as “faggots into the Danube, followed by the Jews,” “soap factory” and “filthy faggots.”

When the Pride March arrived at the Buddha Beach discotheque for their after-party the venue was blockaded by the gangs and the doors were locked by the police, leaving the marchers in the street, where they were again attacked. The gangs eventually dispersed and the party took place, but marchers were bashed as they left the party later on, with more than a dozen people reporting injuries from such attacks, including one German man who ended up in hospital.

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