Hungary fines bookseller for selling unwrapped LGBT content

Hungary fined the country's booksellers for selling a British webcomic without closed wrapping, saying this breached a 2021 law that bans disseminating content among minors that depicts homosexuality.
FILE PHOTO: A supervisor at the Doylestown Bookshop holds a copy of "Heartstopper" that she donated as part of the "Read with Love Book Drive" run by PFLAG Bucks County to help place LGBTQ+ books in Bucks and Montgomery County libraries at the Doylestown Bookshop in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, U.S., April 7, 2023.
FILE PHOTO: A supervisor at the Doylestown Bookshop holds a copy of "Heartstopper" that she donated as part of the "Read with Love Book Drive" run by PFLAG Bucks County to help place LGBTQ+ books in Bucks and Montgomery County libraries at the Doylestown Bookshop in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, U.S., April 7, 2023. REUTERS/Hannah Beier/File Photo
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BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary on Thursday fined one of the country's largest booksellers for selling a British webcomic and graphic novel without closed wrapping, saying this breached a 2021 law that bans disseminating content among minors that depicts homosexuality.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government promotes a strongly Christian-conservative agenda and passed a law in 2021 banning the "display and promotion of homosexuality" among those under age 18 despite criticism from rights groups and the European Union.

The law, which the government says aims to protect children, has caused anxiety in the LGBT community.

A Budapest government office imposed a fine of 12 million forints ($36,041) on Lira Kereskedelmi Kft bookstore, saying it sold "Heartstopper" by British author Alice Oseman, among other books for minors, and did not wrap them in plastic foil as required by law.

Books that feature LGBTQ+ characters are seen wrapped in foil in a Libri bookstore in Budapest, Hungary, July 11, 2023.
Books that feature LGBTQ+ characters are seen wrapped in foil in a Libri bookstore in Budapest, Hungary, July 11, 2023. REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo

"The probe stated that the books in question depict homosexuality and despite this, they were placed among literature aimed for minors," the government office said in a statement on state news agency MTI.

"Heartstopper" has also been adapted as a British coming-of-age romantic comedy-drama television series on Netflix.

Books that feature LGBTQ+ characters are seen wrapped in foil in a Libri bookstore in Budapest, Hungary, July 11, 2023.
Books that feature LGBTQ+ characters are seen wrapped in foil in a Libri bookstore in Budapest, Hungary, July 11, 2023. REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo

This is not the first time a Hungarian government office imposed a fine on a bookstore for a violation of the law that had been strongly condemned by the EU. The fresh fine comes just days ahead of a Pride march in Budapest on Saturday.

The European Commission referred Hungary to the Court of Justice of the EU over the anti-LGBT law in mid-2022.

FILE PHOTO: A person attends the Budapest Pride march in Budapest, Hungary, July 23, 2022.
FILE PHOTO: A person attends the Budapest Pride march in Budapest, Hungary, July 23, 2022. REUTERS/Marton Monus/File Photo

Over the past 13 years, Orban has appealed to conservative Hungarians who believe their country is in a struggle to protect its Christian identity from Muslim immigrants and what it calls "gender and LGBT ideology".

($1 = 332.9500 forints)

(Reporting by Krisztina Than; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

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