Organizers of the unsanctioned gay pride march that took place in Moscow on May 27 have filed an appeal with the Moscow prosecutor's office, which earlier refused to open a criminal case into an attack on German Bundestag Member Volker Beck, a participant in the event.

Organizers of the gay march protest the decision by the deputy prosecutor of the Tverskaya inter-district prosecutor's office to refuse to open a criminal case into the attack on Bundestag member Volker Beck.

German deputy sent an appeal to the Russian Prosecutor's General Office demanding a criminal case be opened against Aleksey Napylov, who said that he does not regret his actions in an interview with the Russian version of the Newsweek journal.

MOSCOW, September 16, 2006 – Organisers of last May’s Moscow Pride have their final “day in court” next week in their long-running battle with the city’s Mayor Luzhkov who banned the Pride Parade.

Pride organisers are claiming that the ban was contrary to both Russian law and the European Convention on Human Rights, which Russia has signed.

On Tuesday September 19, the decision of the lower Tverskoi district court that Luzhkov’s ban on the parade was legal, is being heard at Moscow City Court.

While organisers hope that Moscow City Court will rule in their favour, they have declared that if the ruling goes against them, they will take the matter to the European Court in Strasbourg. There are no procedures for taking the matter to the Supreme Court.

MOSCOW, September 19, 2006 – Organisers of last May’s Moscow Pride have vowed to take the capital’s homophobic mayor to the European Human Rights Court in Strasbourg following today’s decision in a Russian Court.

The Moscow City Court today heard the appeal against the decision of a lower court which backed Luzhkov’s ban of the Pride Parade on May 27.

And even before the decision of the City Court was known, there were accusations that the result was probably “fixed” as there were no representatives from either City Hall or Luzhkov’s office in the office to put their side of the case.

After short consideration of the arguments of the Gay Pride organisers, the Moscow Court announced that it found for the decision of the Tverskoi district court on May 26, which backed Luzhkov’s ban. The City Court announced that the full version of the decision would be published within two weeks.

Dmitri Bartenev, the lawyer representing the Gay Pride organisers, said after the hearing that a complaint against the Russian Federation would be sent immediately to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

LONDON, November 2, 2006 – Homophobia at Moscow Pride last May – and in other Eastern European countries – is the subject of a panel discussion and film presentation organised by the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA) in London next week.

And despite the now-notorious scenes last May, Moscow Pride organisers have set May 25-27 for next year’s event.

MOSCOW, November 13, 2006 – While Nikolai Alekseev, the organiser of the first Moscow Pride last May, was in London to receive an award for his courage in challenging homophobia in Russia and beyond from the British Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association, the British newspaper, The Observer choose to reveal yesterday morning that Elton John and Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears plan to take part in a gay pride concert next year in Moscow.

“The idea for a 'Gay Pride' concert in Moscow would be a brilliant idea” said Elton John in The Observer.

Sir Elton John sees in the concert a good way of working against the “huge anti gay movement” that exists in Russia.

Jake Shears would like The Pet Shop Boys to join him and Elton John.

On their side, organisers of the Moscow Pride said last night that they would like to include Georges Michael to the event as well as some gay friendly Russian artists.

...

“A big concert in which international stars will ‘party’ with Muscovites, regardless of their sexual orientations ... we will see how many people will attend such an event in Moscow which will become a real barometer of tolerance in Russian society” said Mr. Alekseev.

He said the interest of Elton John for a Gay Pride concert in Moscow has already generated the interest of several sponsors.

LONDON, February 26, 2007 – A demonstration is to be staged outside London’s City Hall on Wednesday when the Mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, visits for the annual “M4” summit of the mayors of Berlin, London, Moscow and Paris.

Organised by Outrage!, the demonstration will protest Mayor Luzhkov’s stance on gays in general – and his banning of Moscow Gay Pride Parade.

...

"We need your help to prevent new violations of the rights of gay people in Moscow in May this year,” Mr. Alekseev said in a statement issued this afternoon by Outrage!.

“We appeal to the Mayors of London, Paris and Berlin to protest to Luzhkov against his ban on Moscow Gay Pride. Whatever the stance of the Moscow Mayor, we are going ahead with plans for a second Moscow Gay Pride on 27 May," added Mr Alekseev.

“We appeal to the Mayors of London, Paris and Berlin to protest to Luzhkov against his ban on Moscow Gay Pride. Whatever the stance of the Moscow Mayor, we are going ahead with plans for a second Moscow Gay Pride on 27 May,” added Mr Alekseev.

It is likely that his appeal with not fall on deaf ears. The Mayors of Berlin and Paris are both openly gay, while the Mayor of London is very ‘gay-friendly’. All three capital cities stage large and successful annual Gay Prides.

MOSCOW, February 26, 2007 (GayRussia.ru) – Organisers of the first ever gay pride festival in Moscow Nikolai Baev and Nikolai Alekseev are to sue Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov in Tverskoi district court of Russian capital.

The move, announced this morning, is to “protect the dignity” of the organisers following the statement by Mr. Luzhkov last month that gay parades are nothing else but “satanic happenings”.

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In their claim to Tverskoi district court the claimants say that according to the notification sent to the Moscow Mayor on May 15 2006, they are the official organizers of Moscow gay parade. Thus, the statements of Mr. Luzhkov about the gay parades as “satanic happenings” characterize the actions of the claimants.

According to the Dictionary of Russian language by S.Ozhegov, the word “satanic” means “insult towards a person” which has definitely negative meaning.

The organisers of the pride are claiming that, “in the context of Luzhkov’s speech, this characteristic was used with the aim to show immoral, unethical essence of the actions of gay pride organizers”.

The organizers are asking for a retraction and 2,000 roubles (€60).

Moscow Gay Pride organizer Nikolai Alekseev said on Monday that “we exhausted all possibilities to review the unlawful decision concerning the pride march ban last year within Moscow court system. The denial of its head opened to us the road to the Supreme Court”.

Nikolai Alekseev said that “we already started to prepare a new extraordinary appeal which will be sent to the Supreme Court shortly. I think the reaction of the highest court instance in Russia can be expected before 27 May, the date of the second gay pride march in Moscow. From the very beginning we said that it would be logical to send this case to the Supreme Court before it is considered in Strasbourg”.

Moscow Pride organizer underlined that “Moscow court system is highly dependent on City authorities. That is why we had little hope to win the case against the authorities in these courts. Supreme Court will obviously not be subjected to the pressure from Moscow City Hall and its decision should be more objective. I would like to remind that Russian federal government already expressed their position concerning the march ban. Being head of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe Russian federal authorities admitted that local authorities could not ban gay marches”.

A Moscow court Friday tossed out a lawsuit accusing mayor Juri Lushkov of libel over claims he made that gay rights marches were "satanic."

The court ruled that Moscow Pride leaders had failed to prove that the remarks were incendiary or intended to vilify gays in general. "The court did not find any grounds to meet the claim," a court spokesman told the Novosti news service. Moscow Pride said it would appeal. It wants an apology from the mayor and a fine of 1,000 rubles (about $39).

[...]

Moscow Pride has applied for a parade march to celebrate pride this May, and Lushkov has said he will again ban it. The festival is scheduled for May 26 and 27. Alexkseev said it will be held with or without official recognition.

For the second year in a row, an attempt to hold a Gay Pride demonstration in Moscow despite a ban by the city's mayor -- who had called such demonstrations "satanic" -- was broken up today by police and special OMON riot militia. The gay contingent was violently attacked by anti-gay ultra-nationalists and fascists, who threw punches and bottles. Among those reported arrested so far (there were 31 arrested, according to the Novosti news agency) were German MP Volker Beck, chief Moscow Pride organizer Nikolai Alekseev, British gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, and Italian MEP (Member of the European Parliament) Marco Cappato.

Moscow, May 28, Interfax - The Orthodox youth movement Georgievtsy! said they would push gay and lesbians out of the Plevna War Memorial in Moscow downtown

‘We officially declare that this place is sacred for the Orthodox Christians and representatives of sexual minorities should not meet over there,’ the movement’s press secretary Diana Romanovskaya told the journalists on Sunday.

Last Sunday young Orthodox people held a sanctioned picket near the memorial protesting against the gay parade in Moscow.

The movement activists ‘will regularly watch the park and do their best in order that the memorial might no longer be a gay and lesbian meeting place,’ Romanovskaya said.

She refused to explain how exactly the movement members were going to achieve their goal.

One of the picketers as the father of many children urged the others to organize in Moscow parades of families with many children to confront gay prides.

The Moscow authorities sanctioned a twenty people picket, but the actual number of those who came was much higher.

The young picketers held a large poster with biblical verses condemning same-sex relations.

The Russian Orthodox Church, Romanovskaya noted, has always been unambiguously against same-sex relations, which ‘substitute traditional moral values with false and perverted ones.’

‘Instead of ideals of true love, healthy children and strong families, people including youth and children are suggested to accept same-sex relations that give only momentary satisfaction of a truly abominable passion. And they dare to disguise it with the human rights,’ Romanovskaya said.

From the suffragettes to the Montgomery bus boycotters, history is littered with characters who kick-start progress by being awkward - and awkwardness is something Peter Tatchell has in spades. Whether he is interrupting the Archbishop of Canterbury's sermon or attempting a citizen's arrest of Robert Mugabe, the gay-rights campaigner is always up to something that the establishment does not like - which for Tatchell is precisely the point. His brand of megaphone politics is unattractive to many, but after his defiant response to being beaten by thugs in Russia at the weekend, not even critics can deny that he is brave.

You may think the disastrous attempts to stage gay pride parades in Moscow last year and this year were the beginning of gay activism in Russia. Some people called last year's mêlée Russia's "Stonewall." In reality, Russia's Stonewall-ish thing took place in 1991, in Moscow and Leningrad, in the then-Soviet Union. And I was there. And I wrote this story and took these pictures.

... Now, with a small gay rights movement taking shape amid a more frank pop culture, gays are struggling with altogether different questions.


Should they openly confront what many people see as growing homophobia in a society where nationalism is on the rise and grass-roots social movements are almost nonexistent? Or should they lie low and hope for gradual improvement? The issue has opened a deep divide in the gay community, with most appearing to favor a low-key approach.

“On the one hand, it’s good that people are talking about it, that it isn’t covered up that this fact exists,” said Gusyatinskaya, drawing on conversations with the hundreds of gay people who have visited her archive in the past decade. “Yet how this is talked about, particularly on television, doesn’t help to destroy homophobia, but rather unleashes it.”

[...]

Firm resistance is needed, said Alexey Davidov, 30, a leader of the march. Gays who disagree “don’t realize, if things keep going the way they’re going, how many dead bodies there will be all around Russia 50 years from now.”

Campaigners say homophobia is as much a political as a social issue. They note that nationalists portray gay groups as conspiring with foreigners to smear Russia’s reputation. On May 29, for instance, several journalists published a letter in the pro-Kremlin Trud daily that said: “The short-lasting arrests [at the protest] allowed the foreign press to get video footage of the ‘violation of the rights of sexual minorities’ -- which is in high demand in the nascent large-scale psychological war against Russia.”

[...]

But other gays express skepticism over an approach that pushes them into the public eye. “Some people come to wave their fists, and others come to prove that we’re gays, we’re somebody and aren’t scared of you,” said Svetlana, 17, at a Moscow city park frequented by gays. “What can come of it?”

Svetlana refused to be photographed and declined to give her last name. Most Russian gays lead double lives, divulging their sexuality only to their closest friends -- often not to their parents -- and socializing outside the mainstream, in gay nightclubs, online and at special meeting places.
For now, Svetlana and many others can’t imagine their lives in Russia any other way. “We don’t need to fight for any rights,” she said. “This generation that lived during the U.S.S.R. needs to go away, and eventually the younger generation will push out the old one.”

[...]

Outside the gay community, the belief that gays should keep to themselves appears nearly universal. Only 9 percent of respondents disagreed with Luzhkov’s ban of the gay pride march last year, according to a survey by the Public Opinion Foundation.

In politics, gay groups have found next to no allies. None of the small parties that advocate Western-style democracy have made an issue of gay rights; some of them argue that Russia has much bigger problems. The only national politician who has publicly come to Alexeyev’s aid is an ultranationalist member of parliament, Dmitri Mitrofanov. Many in the gay community criticize the activists for making common cause with a politician who has expressed racist views, but Alexeyev says he has little choice.

“People, don’t ask why Mitrofanov acted, but ask why others didn’t,” said Alexeyev.