Leading human rights officials have urged MPs in Hungary to reject legislation banning any content portraying or promoting homosexuality or sex reassignment to anyone under 18.
The appeals came as protests were planned later in the day in Budapest against the proposed law, which is backed by Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s nationalist government.
Fidesz, Mr Orban’s conservative ruling party, presented the legislation last week and plans to vote on the bills on Tuesday. They includes a measure aimed at fighting paedophilia along with other amendments prohibiting transmitting information about LGBT people or same-sex relationships to youth.
Fidesz describes the legislation as an effort to protect children from paedophilia.
But Lydia Gall, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, said equating sexual and gender diversity with paedophilia hurt the dignity of LGBT people and risked putting them in danger.
Ms Gall called the legislation “a cynical, distasteful and deliberate attempt by the Orban government to trample the rights of LGBT people and essentially make them invisible in Hungarian society”.
Dunja Mijatovic, the commissioner for human rights at the Council of Europe, the continent’s leading human rights body, asked Hungarian MPs to reject the legislation.
“I urge you to remain vigilant against such initiatives to push through measures that limit human rights or stigmatise against some members of society,” Ms Mijatovic said.
The Hungarian amendments would outlaw any depiction or discussion of different gender identities and sexual orientations in public, including in schools and the media.
Some human rights groups have compared the planned ban to a discriminatory 2013 Russian law banning so-called gay “propaganda” widely viewed as a tool of discrimination.
Ms Mijatovic said such legislation reinforces prejudice against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. She also argued that international human rights groups have established that young people have a right to comprehensive sex education, which is not possible if there is a ban on any discussion of LGBT issues.
“The proposed legislative amendments run counter to international and European human rights standards. It is misleading and false to claim that they are being introduced to protect children,” she said.
The legislation is expected to pass given that Fidesz has a majority.
The opposition in Hungary is divided on the matter.
The right-wing Jobbik party said it plans to vote for the bill and amendments despite what it said were some flaws because it agrees that the “promotion” of gender change and “all kinds of sexual orientations” should not be allowed in schools.
Meanwhile, the centre-left Democratic Coalition said it would boycott not only the vote on the bill but the entire Tuesday session to protest against Fidesz’s “hate-mongering” and “discriminatory politics”.
