Gay Pride Demonstrators Attacked at Rally
29/06/2011
Submitted by
ILGA-Europe
Original article: http://www.times.spb.ru/index.php?story_id=34211&action_id=2
The unauthorized Slavic Gay Pride march, which lasted just four minutes, was first attacked by neo-Nazis and then dispersed by the police in St. Petersburg on Saturday.
A dozen activists shouting “Russia With No Homophobes” and “Equal Rights With No Compromise” marched to the Bronze Horseman in central St. Petersburg. They carried rainbow flags and posters such as “God is With Us, Hatred With You,” “Russians Are Not Homophobes” and “Don’t Be Scared: Homophobia Is Curable.”
The poster “Matviyenko! Alcoholism Is a Disease. Homosexuality Is Not” referred to St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko, whom the activists declared responsible for “everything that happens” during the event by virtue of the local authorities’ repeated refusal to authorize the rally.
Only one minute into the event, one activist was attacked by a hooded man, who punched him in the face, while two or three others rushed at the demonstrators seizing and tearing up the posters — despite the massive presence of the police on and near the site.
The police arrested the hooded attacker and proceeded to detain the activists, but, when the arrests were made, another group of activists produced posters on the steps of the Constitutional Court across the street. The police ran to arrest them as well.
While two activists from Belarus, who avoided arrest, were being interviewed by a television crew, a counter protester wearing a T-shirt with the word “Russia” and a double-headed eagle intervened claiming that Russia is a “traditionalist country… the Third Rome.”
The 14 arrested activists were taken to Police Precinct 2, where they were held overnight in a cell until Sunday afternoon. According to one of them, an officer admitted in a private conversation that this was done due to “pressure from Moscow.”
The detained attacker was soon released from the precinct, the activists said. The protester who was attacked, Alexander Sheremetyev of St. Petersburg LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) rights organization Ravnopraviye (Equal Rights), was later diagnosed with contusions to the head and lips.
The activists were charged with violating the regulations on holding public events and failure to obey a police officer’s orders. On Sunday, the court imposed fines of between 500 and 1,000 rubles ($18 to $35) for the former offense, but sent the cases regarding the latter to the activists’ respective local courts. Failure to obey a police officer’s orders is punishable with up to 15 days in prison.
According to Ravnopraviye’s chair Yury Gavrikov, three applications to hold the rally submitted to district administrations and one application to City Hall were rejected by the authorities on questionable grounds. Pionerskaya Ploshchad, a frequent site for various meetings, was rejected as a venue on the grounds that a rehearsal by a youth theater group was scheduled to be held there on June 25, though the time of the planned rehearsal was not specified, he said.
The route from Sportivnaya metro to Ploshchad Sakharova, also occasionally used for authorized marches, was refused because the matchers would distract the attention of drivers which might result in traffic accidents, while a children’s excursion would be held on Ploshchad Sakharova on that day.
The authorities said the protesters could not use Ploshchad Yevropy, the site behind Park Inn Pribaltiiskaya Hotel, because it would hinder work to assemble a summer entertainment park there, although Sheremetyev, who checked the location, said there were no works in sight.
Finally, the authorities suggested a site on Kozhevennaya Liniya on Vasilyevsky Island, described by Gavrikov as an “unpopulated, industrial area,” between warehouses and boiler rooms, but when the activists agreed to it, issued a refusal on the same day.
In their final letter to the organizers, the authorities said that spare parts would be delivered to a boiler house located there between June 20 and 25, and that any disruption could result in failures in the 2011/12 heating season.
That was on the last day that applications could be submitted by law.
“I do not know what this is — mockery, cynicism, rudeness?” Gavrikov said. “I haven’t seen cynicism on such a scale anywhere outside St. Petersburg,” Moscow activist Nikolai Alexeyev said.
“They suggested an industrial, totally unpopulated area, and then they banned it themselves… It looks like they expected we would not agree to it.”
The organizers said they were left with no choice other than to hold an act of civil disobedience, choosing the lively, tourist site near the Bronze Horseman — the celebrated monument to Peter the Great — because Peter the Great “founded St. Petersburg as a European city, a city with European values.”
“We were left with no option other than to hold an act of civil disobedience to attract the attention of people to the St. Petersburg authorities’ lawlessness with regard to us,” Gavrikov said.
Nikolayev said that the authorities have repeatedly refused to discuss the issue of discrimination against the LGBT community with activists for the past six years.
“I think it’s impossible to talk with the authorities, it can only be done if they change their attitude and start to obey the law,” he said.
The unauthorized Slavic Gay Pride march, which lasted just four minutes, was first attacked by neo-Nazis and then dispersed by the police in St. Petersburg on Saturday.
A dozen activists shouting “Russia With No Homophobes” and “Equal Rights With No Compromise” marched to the Bronze Horseman in central St. Petersburg. They carried rainbow flags and posters such as “God is With Us, Hatred With You,” “Russians Are Not Homophobes” and “Don’t Be Scared: Homophobia Is Curable.”
The poster “Matviyenko! Alcoholism Is a Disease. Homosexuality Is Not” referred to St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko, whom the activists declared responsible for “everything that happens” during the event by virtue of the local authorities’ repeated refusal to authorize the rally.
Only one minute into the event, one activist was attacked by a hooded man, who punched him in the face, while two or three others rushed at the demonstrators seizing and tearing up the posters — despite the massive presence of the police on and near the site.
The police arrested the hooded attacker and proceeded to detain the activists, but, when the arrests were made, another group of activists produced posters on the steps of the Constitutional Court across the street. The police ran to arrest them as well.
While two activists from Belarus, who avoided arrest, were being interviewed by a television crew, a counter protester wearing a T-shirt with the word “Russia” and a double-headed eagle intervened claiming that Russia is a “traditionalist country… the Third Rome.”
The 14 arrested activists were taken to Police Precinct 2, where they were held overnight in a cell until Sunday afternoon. According to one of them, an officer admitted in a private conversation that this was done due to “pressure from Moscow.”
The detained attacker was soon released from the precinct, the activists said. The protester who was attacked, Alexander Sheremetyev of St. Petersburg LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) rights organization Ravnopraviye (Equal Rights), was later diagnosed with contusions to the head and lips.
The activists were charged with violating the regulations on holding public events and failure to obey a police officer’s orders. On Sunday, the court imposed fines of between 500 and 1,000 rubles ($18 to $35) for the former offense, but sent the cases regarding the latter to the activists’ respective local courts. Failure to obey a police officer’s orders is punishable with up to 15 days in prison.
According to Ravnopraviye’s chair Yury Gavrikov, three applications to hold the rally submitted to district administrations and one application to City Hall were rejected by the authorities on questionable grounds. Pionerskaya Ploshchad, a frequent site for various meetings, was rejected as a venue on the grounds that a rehearsal by a youth theater group was scheduled to be held there on June 25, though the time of the planned rehearsal was not specified, he said.
The route from Sportivnaya metro to Ploshchad Sakharova, also occasionally used for authorized marches, was refused because the matchers would distract the attention of drivers which might result in traffic accidents, while a children’s excursion would be held on Ploshchad Sakharova on that day.
The authorities said the protesters could not use Ploshchad Yevropy, the site behind Park Inn Pribaltiiskaya Hotel, because it would hinder work to assemble a summer entertainment park there, although Sheremetyev, who checked the location, said there were no works in sight.
Finally, the authorities suggested a site on Kozhevennaya Liniya on Vasilyevsky Island, described by Gavrikov as an “unpopulated, industrial area,” between warehouses and boiler rooms, but when the activists agreed to it, issued a refusal on the same day.
In their final letter to the organizers, the authorities said that spare parts would be delivered to a boiler house located there between June 20 and 25, and that any disruption could result in failures in the 2011/12 heating season.
That was on the last day that applications could be submitted by law.
“I do not know what this is — mockery, cynicism, rudeness?” Gavrikov said. “I haven’t seen cynicism on such a scale anywhere outside St. Petersburg,” Moscow activist Nikolai Alexeyev said.
“They suggested an industrial, totally unpopulated area, and then they banned it themselves… It looks like they expected we would not agree to it.”
The organizers said they were left with no choice other than to hold an act of civil disobedience, choosing the lively, tourist site near the Bronze Horseman — the celebrated monument to Peter the Great — because Peter the Great “founded St. Petersburg as a European city, a city with European values.”
“We were left with no option other than to hold an act of civil disobedience to attract the attention of people to the St. Petersburg authorities’ lawlessness with regard to us,” Gavrikov said.
Nikolayev said that the authorities have repeatedly refused to discuss the issue of discrimination against the LGBT community with activists for the past six years.
“I think it’s impossible to talk with the authorities, it can only be done if they change their attitude and start to obey the law,” he said.
