On 15 June 2006, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the increase of racist and homophobic violence in Europe. ILGA-Europe welcomes this resolution and joins the European Parliament’s call to the Finnish presidency to intensify work on the 2001 Council Framework Decision on combating racism and xenophobia and to explicitly extent it to homophobic, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and other types of offences motivated by phobia or hatred based on ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, religion or other irrational grounds.

Today the Latvian Parliament rejected a proposal to include sexual orientation in the Labour Law. Latvia is the only member state of the European Union which still refuses to explicitly ban sexual orientation discrimination in employment as required by the EU Employment Equality Directive.

On the eve of Russia accepting its presidency of the Council of Europe, on 27 May 2006 Moscow authorities have dispersed a peaceful demonstration in support of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights and failed to ensure the safety of its participants. The events resulted in violence by Russian Orthodox extremists and neo-Nazi groups against LGBT people and their supporters. Earlier this month the mayor of Moscow Yuriy Luzhkov had refused to authorise a gay parade. “We will not even consider this matter” he said in an interview to a Russian radio station one day before the event.

On 18 May 2006, the Mayor of Moscow refused permission for the first lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Pride March.

On 17 May 2006, when the world marked International Day against Homophobia, the United Nations (UN) rejected ILGA-Europe’s application for consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Day before a similar application by LSVD a German national lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) federation was also rejected.