• Arrangemeetings with or send a letter to your town/city mayor. During the meeting or in your letter you can explain the campaign, the situation in some European countries with regard to the limitation of LGBT Pride festivals and other public events; encourage your mayor to sign ILGA-Europe’s appeal and issue individual statement of support. You can use ILGA-Europe’s letter as a template, this letter is available at our website in the campaign’s section. Please send us any confirmation letters/statements and additional messages of support issued.
• When talking and/or meeting with your town/city mayor you might find useful to use our “LGBT Rights - Freedom of Assembly: diary of events by country (October 2006)which chronicles the attempts of LGBT communities in the region to exercise their right to freedom of assembly, and the opposition they have met.
• ILGA-Europe has also produced two documents which contain useful chapters on international and European law with regard to the right of assembly and expression which you might find useful when dealing with your mayor. Both documents are available on our website: Handbook on Observations of Pride Marches (June 2006)and Prides against Prejudice. A Toolkit for Pride Organising in a Hostile Environment (September 2006). A toolkit for pride organising in a hostile environment (September 2006). If you require a printed version, just let us know to whom we should send them, where and how many.
• Use your local Pride festivals and other LGBT public events to raise the profile of this campaign and the issue of restriction and limitation of LGBT Pride festivals and public events in Europe, and to gain support from your mayor and your country’s celebrities. Please send us any confirmation letters/statements and additional messages of support issued.
• Some national and local LGBT organisations as well as individuals have access to various cultural, sport and political celebrities in their countries. We encourage you to help us to access these people, asking them to sign ILGA-Europe’s appeal and issue their individual message of support.
• To make this campaign more effective you might want to help us by translating our appeal into your language. Some mayor might want to issue their individual statement of support in their own language and you might want to help translate it into English.
• There is a great opportunity coming on 4 August 2007, when a group of activists across the world are organising Global Gay Solidarity Day, more details: http://mpetrelis.blogspot.com/2007/06/aug-4-global-gay-solidarity-day-in-six.html. Use this opportunity to raise the issue and the campaign and gain support from your Mayor, celebrities, attract media attention.
• Some national and local LGBT organisations as well as individuals have access to various cultural, sport and political celebrities in their countries. We encourage you to help us to access these people, asking them to sign ILGA-Europe’s appeal and issue their individual message of support.
• To make this campaign more effective we encourage you to translate the appeal into your language, it is much more effective when you present the appeal in local language. Encourage your Mayor to issue her/his individual statement of support in local language and you might want to help translate it into English. It would be very helpful if you could send us these translations, as they might be useful to others
• Profile the campaign it in your country by providing information to your national and/or local media. You will find some images from various Pride events across Europe on our website which always makes story more attractive to the media and increase a chance of being taken up: http://www.ilga-europe.org/europe/photo_galleries

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact

Juris Lavrikovs
ILGA-Europe’s Information & Communications officer
Telephone: +32 2 609 54 16
Mobile: +32 496 708 375
Fax: + 32 2 609 54 19
juris@ilga-europe.org