Moscow Gay Pride Banned For 100 Years

in: http://en.rian.ru/society/20120607/173899632.html





The Moscow City Court upheld on Thursday a district court’s decision to ban gay parades in Moscow for the next 100 years, Gayrussia.ru reported.

The ban came after Moscow gay activists submitted requests on August 23, 2011, to the City Hall to hold gay rallies up until 2112. The LGBT-activists used a loophole in the law that only determines the deadline for submitting rally applications (no later than 30-45 days before the event), but does not state how far in advance events can be submitted.

Moscow City Court dismissed the requests, with the district court issuing a 100-year ban on public homosexual rallies, according to Gayrussia.ru.

After the city’s main court upheld the district court’s decision, Moscow gay rights activist Nikolai Alexeyev told Gayrussia.ru that he would appeal to the European Court on Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Alexeyev, the leader of GayRussia, also said on Thursday in his Twitter that he had paid the first fine for propagating homosexual "propaganda."

The activist is the first to be fined 5,000 rubles ($170) under a new local anti-gay law in St. Petersburg after he was detained for picketing outside St. Petersburg's legislature building in April in protest at what he described as the "homophobic" new law.

The legislation, which makes it illegal to "disseminate homosexual propaganda" among minors, was signed by St. Petersburg Governor Georgy Poltavchenko in March, making it the fourth Russian city to adopt such a ban.

Several politicians and church figures have called for the law, which sets fines of up to to 500,000 rubles ($17,000) for violations, to be passed at the federal level.

Homosexuality was only decriminalized in Russia in 1993, and anti-gay sentiments remain strong in society, including Russia's political establishment. In 2007, Former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov described attempts to hold a Gay Parade in the capital as "satanic." No Gay Parade has ever been officially permitted in Russia.


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Dozens arrested in Moscow gay rights parade clashes

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Russian police detain American gay rights activist Dan Choi on Saturday in central Moscow

More than 30 people were arrested Saturday in central Moscow during the sixth attempt by gay rights groups to hold a parade in the city.

According to the group, Gay Russia, far right groups clashed with activists who were gathered in front of the Kremlin wall and city hall.

A total of 18 gay activists and 14 anti-gay activists were arrested, according to Moscow City police.

A police spokesman told CNN that the group did not have permission to gather publically for a parade.

Three prominent gay rights activists, Americans Dan Choi and Andy Thayer, and France's Louis-George Tin, were among those detained.

"We have been asking for the last six years to gather. We are being deprived of a very simple right that is taken for granted in democratic countries," Nikolai Alexeyev, Head of Gay Russia, chief organizer of the Moscow Gay Pride Parade told CNN.

Alexeyev said as soon as activists took out their banners and flags, dozens of members of an ultra-Orthodox group attacked the activists.

Gay rights flags and banners that read 'Russia is not Iran' were displayed in the crowd.

Last week the city denied the group a parade permit due to "a number of complaints", Moscow's deputy mayor, Luydmila Shevtsova said, according to reports from national new agency Ria Novosti.

Representatives of religious groups, ultra-nationalists and the Moscow City Parent Committee had filed complaints against the parade.

This past October, the European Court of Human Rights fined Russia for banning gay parades in the capital.

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