Hosting the World Press Photo exhibition, featuring images of LGBT people in the Philippines, has cost the director of Hungary’s National Museum his job.
While World Press Photo executive director Joumana El Zein Khoury said the images – by acclaimed photographer Hannah Reyes Morales – contained ‘nothing explicit or offensive’, the government said museum director Laszlo Simon had failed to follow ‘legal obligations’.
The BBC reports that a controversial Hungarian law bans the ‘display and promotion of homosexuality’ in materials accessible to children, such as books and films.
Simon, a former minister in the right-wing government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, insisted that the museum did not intentionally break any laws, having complied with an order to restrict entry for under-18s.
According to the BBC, a far-right lawmaker had earlier demanded the government launch an inquiry into the exhibition over a series of photos that depicted a community of elderly LGBT people in the Philippines.
The politician cited legislation introduced in Hungary in 2021 prohibiting under-18s from consuming material deemed to promote homosexuality, gay rights or gender change.
The government ruled that the photographs broke the law. The museum responded by putting a notice on its website and at its entrance saying the exhibition was not open to people under 18.
Hannah Reyes Morales was quoted by Associated Press as saying that she was ‘beyond saddened’, adding: ‘What is harmful is limiting visibility for the LGBTQIA+ community, and their right to exist and to be seen.’