Romania: Oradea Pride Also Banned in 2026
Forbidden Colours helped our partner organization ACCEPT Romania to coordinate an international civil society appeal calling on the Municipality of Oradea to allow the Oradea Pride March to proceed safely through the city on 25 July 2026.
The appeal has brought together more than 120 Romanian, European and international organisations in an unprecedented show of solidarity with ARK Oradea and the local LGBTIQ+ community. The signatories are calling on local and national authorities to guarantee the effective exercise of freedom of assembly and prevent a repetition of the police violence witnessed during Oradea Pride in 2025.
Despite the organisers submitting their notification within the legal deadline and identifying more than 100 possible routes, local authorities appear intent on rejecting every viable option. Instead, they have proposed limiting participants to a static gathering or pushing the march away from the city centre.
A stationary gathering on the outskirts of Oradea is not an adequate substitute for a Pride march. Freedom of assembly must be effective and visible—not merely theoretical.
This is the fourth consecutive year in which Oradea’s authorities have obstructed the organisation of a Pride march. The repeated rejection of every practical solution can no longer credibly be presented as an administrative or logistical problem. It constitutes a systematic restriction of the LGBTIQ+ community’s freedom of assembly and expression.
“Together with ACCEPT Romania, Forbidden Colours coordinated this broad international response because what is happening in Oradea can no longer be treated as an isolated local issue,” said Rémy Bonny, Executive Director of Forbidden Colours.
“When a municipality repeatedly prevents the same minority from exercising its right to peaceful assembly, European civil society has a responsibility to act collectively. More than 120 organisations are now sending one clear message: Oradea Pride must be allowed to march.”
Forbidden Colours was present at Oradea Pride in 2025 and witnessed first-hand how peaceful participants were treated by the authorities. Rémy Bonny will again participate in this year’s Oradea Pride, planned on July 25.
“We were there last year. We saw peaceful participants blocked from entering the announced route, pushed into streets closed for construction and confronted with police violence,” Bonny said.
“The authorities did not protect the LGBTIQ+ community’s freedom of assembly. Instead, police force was used against people who were peacefully demanding their fundamental rights. It was deeply disturbing to witness this happening inside the European Union.”
More than 500 people nevertheless joined the 2025 march after the municipality rejected all proposed routes. Participants were isolated by law-enforcement officers, while several people subsequently received fines or faced proceedings linked to their participation.
“This year, the organisers have identified more than 100 possible routes. If the authorities reject every single one, nobody can pretend that the problem is traffic, construction works or scheduling,” Bonny continued. “The objective is clearly to make Pride invisible. That is discrimination carried out through administrative obstruction.”
The right to peaceful assembly is protected by the Romanian Constitution, the European Convention on Human Rights and European Union law. Religious objections or the political preferences of local officials cannot justify denying LGBTIQ+ people equal access to public space.
Oradea Mayor Florin Birta belongs to Romania’s National Liberal Party, a member of the European People’s Party. Forbidden Colours calls on the EPP leadership to make clear that politicians within its political family cannot systematically obstruct Pride marches while continuing to present themselves as “defenders of European values”.
“The European People’s Party cannot remain silent when one of its own mayors repeatedly denies LGBTIQ+ people their fundamental freedoms,” Bonny said. “European values must also be defended when the violation is committed by someone from your own political family.”
Following the end of the Pride ban in Budapest, Oradea risks becoming the only city in the European Union where local authorities continue to prevent an LGBTIQ+ community from holding a Pride march year after year.
“The European Commission and the Romanian national authorities must intervene before people are again subjected to violence, intimidation and punishment simply for peacefully marching through their own city.”, Bonny concludes.
Forbidden Colours call upon:
- Mayor Florin Birta and the Municipality of Oradea to approve a safe, visible and meaningful route for the march;
- Romanian national authorities to guarantee the safety and freedom of assembly of all participants;
- law-enforcement authorities to protect participants and refrain from unnecessary or disproportionate force;
- the European Commission to monitor the situation as a matter of fundamental rights and the rule of law and review financial support for the city of Oradea;
- and the European People’s Party to address the conduct of its local political representatives.
Forbidden Colours will continue working with ACCEPT Romania, ARK Oradea and civil society partners across Europe to ensure that the LGBTIQ+ community of Oradea can exercise the same democratic freedoms as every other citizen.
Protecting Oradea Pride means protecting democracy in Romania. When the freedom of one community is repeatedly restricted, everyone’s freedom is weakened.
