“The mayor said it was because he had received so many letters of protest against a gay march, and because of that, he could not provide security,” said Alexeev, a former graduate student at Moscow State University who left the institution after being told he would not be allowed to complete a dissertation on the rights of sexual minorities. Organizers of the Pride ’06 festival say they will proceed with an unsanctioned picket action Saturday, to be held in an unannounced location in the city to try to avert violent protests. The next day, 22 more anti-gay protesters were arrested near a major Moscow public center.
First gay pride parade in russia cracked#
He said 43 of his activists were arrested and spent nearly 20 hours in jail after police cracked down on the protest. “We have repeatedly stated our opposition to the public propaganda of such phenomena as homosexuality and lesbianism, because we believe they run counter to the norms of the main religions that are practiced in Russia,” Artyomov said. Demonstration organizer Igor Artyomov, a member of Moscow’s regional council, said they were throwing only eggs and tomatoes. Owner Grigory Plotkin said the crowd began throwing rocks and bottles as staff members from his club, which is not normally a gay gathering place, tried to exit. The potential for violence was apparent last month, when about 300 protesters organized by the nationalist Russian All-National Union swarmed outside a club at which a gay and lesbian party was planned, waving Orthodox icons and shouting anti-gay slogans. Currently, the stated actions are not prohibited by law,” she said, “but their agitation, including gay festivals and a parade of sexual minorities, is in fact propaganda of immorality, which may be prohibited by law.” “In our country, homosexuality and lesbianism have always been considered sexual perversions, and were even prosecuted in the past. Deputy Mayor Lyudmila Shevtsova, in her recommendation for the denial, cited more than 200 letters of protest. Luzhkov denied festival organizers’ application to permit 2,000 to march Saturday through central Moscow to Lubyanka Square, headquarters of the Federal Security Service. Any normal person would do that - Muslims and Orthodox Christians alike,” he said. And if they come out into the streets anyway, they should only be beaten up. “Under no circumstances should something like this be permitted. About 20 protesters entered the hall, shouted anti-gay slogans and released an unidentified but apparently harmless gas before being arrested. The Pride ’06 festival opened Thursday with a lecture by Merlin Holland, grandson of Oscar Wilde, the homosexual writer who spent several years in a British prison. They are basically scared to say they’re gay.” They are completely closeted, they cannot have any kind of open, happy life. “When you get outside of Moscow, people have nowhere to go. “There is still a huge problem in this country,” said Nikolai Alexeev, organizer of the Pride ’06 festival. This week, Russian gay activists are trying to stage the nation’s first gay pride festival in a country that now officially tolerates a variety of lifestyles, but which in many ways has changed little since the days more than a century ago when homosexuals could legally be beaten with birch rods.
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A five-hour “trial” was held, the story goes, and Tchaikovsky took his own life in an agony of shame and regret.
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The story persists - probably a myth, historians say, but who cares? - that the gay genius was confronted by former classmates, who accused him of assaulting the honor of their school with his male dalliances. A small idea of what it means to be homosexual in Russia might be gleaned from the life and death of composer Peter Illich Tchaikovsky, who died in 1893 after contracting cholera from a glass of water.Ī large part of the population here doesn’t buy the official cause of death.