Sep 04, 2007News: Court in Moscow Affirms Ban on Gay Pride
By Sven Rabatzky
(Russia) - Moscow's Tverskoy court has decided that Moscow authorities were right to decline to grant a permit for a Gay pride event on May 27. Event organizer Nikolai Alekseyev told Interfax on that the court rejected a protest submitted by organizers. Alekseyev said improper actions by the judge led plaintiffs to challenge the judge during the hearings but the challenge was rejected. Alekseyev said that the Tverskoy court decision would be appealed with a cassation instance and with the European Court of Human Rights.
Nikolai Alekseev sued city authorities for an illegal prohibition on holding the march in support of Gay people in Russia.
Activists initially had planned to perform a Gay pride march on Moscow's Tverskaya Street, but were unlawfully denied permission by Moscow city authorities. The Mayor Yury Luzhkov publicly denounced Gay pride parades as "Satanic."
In May, protestors showed up in front of the City Hall to submit a petition to the authorities urging him to lift the ban. The peacefull demonstration was assaulted by christian fundamentalists and neonazis while the police were watching. Legendary british Gay rights activist Peter Tatchell was punched in the face and beaten by homophobic thugs, before he was arrested while his attackers went unpunished.
Pink News quoted Peter Tatchell saying: "The Moscow police gave right-wing extremists a more or less free hand to attack Gay Pride marchers. Despite many of us being battered left, right and centre, the police only arrested a handful of the assailants."
Gay rights activists later gathered to submit a letter signed by some 50 members of the European Parliament protesting the violence and the ban.
Russia is a member of the Council of Europe, and a signatory to the European Convention of Human Rights, which obliges the state to allow demonstrations to be held. The country’s record on human rights violations is horrific, and government seems unable and unwilling to do anything to improve the situation.
The criminalization of homosexuality was dropped in Russia in 2003, but violence and prejudice against Gay women and men remains widespread. Orthodox Church is massively agitating against Gay culture and is the main reason of demonization of Gay people in Russia.
