As in Russia, the local governments seem to be in cahoots with the neo-Nazis, the irony of which shouldn't be lost on anyone, let alone folks from Hungary and Russia.
Kurt Krickler
Generalsekretär
Homosexuelle Initiative (HOSI) Wien
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2011 13:53:44 +0200
From: Kurt Krickler Kurt.Krickler@hosiwien.at
Subject: Austrian participants arrested after Budapest Pride
Two Austrian participants were arrested yesterday, 18 June 2011, after the LGBT Pride Parade in Budapest. Altogether 50 participants were stopped by Hungarian police for almost two hours. "It was already after the parade, we were walking back to our bus to travel home to Vienna when we were physically attacked by around 15 people, including with terribly smelly sprays", reports Judith Götz, who also writes for LAMBDA-Nachrichten, the magazine of Homosexuelle Initiative (HOSI) Wien. "While we escaped into the bus, the neonazis told the police, who was also present, that they would have been attacked by us. The police then brutally dragged all 50 of us out of the bus, we had to hand over our passports and were put, one by one, in front of the group of neonazis so that they could 'identify' those who had allegedly attacked them. The neonazis then picked randomly two of us as having attacked them." These two people were then arrested. While the rest of the Austrian group, after almost two hours, were finally allowed to travel home, the two participants arrested due to the false accusations of the neonazis, were only released early Sunday morning.
"We are really appalled by the handling of this affair by the Hungarian police, and we expect that this incident will have some sort of diplomatic sequel", declares Kurt Krickler, secretary-general of HOSI Wien.
