>> Mayor of Northern Russian City Breaks Promise, Rejects Request for Gay Parade
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Des militants pour les droits des LGBT ont annoncé ce lundi que les autorités de Saint-Pétersbourg avaient interdit la tenue d’une gay pride prévue pour le 2 août :
« Les autorités prennent prétexte de la loi interdisant la propagande homosexuelle auprès des mineurs, que cette manifestation pourrait violer », ont expliqué des militants de l’ONG GayRussia dans un communiqué. Les organisateurs avaient déjà déposé une demande pour la tenue d’une gay pride le 25 juillet à Saint-Pétersbourg, qui avait également été rejetée par l’administration de la ville pour « plus ou moins les mêmes raisons », poursuit le communiqué.
Des promesses que le député Viktor Pavlenko n’aura donc pas tenues, soulignant désormais que les « gays lui tapent sur le système ».
Selon les médias locaux, une association de vétérans réunissant notamment des anciens parachutistes (les mêmes qui en 2013 avaient agressé des militants LGBT) avait exprimé son « indignation » face aux projets d’organiser la gay pride le 2 août, jour de fête traditionnel pour les forces aéroportées en Russie.
Avec AFP
>> A mayor in a northern Russian city broke an unofficial promise Friday by banning a gay Pride event on Paratroopers Day — a holiday known for drunken fistfights and “displays of macho aggression,” according to the Moscow Times.
Viktor Pavlenko, mayor of Arkhangelsk, declined an official request from the LGBT community this week to approve a pro-gay march. The request was rejected thanks to the controversial “homosexual propaganda” laws in Russia, which bans spreading homosexual “information” to minors, which is deemed harmful.
“The information banned from being distributed among children includes information that undermines family values and promotes non-traditional sexual relations,” read a letter from the mayor’s office, which was obtained by Govorit Moskva, a Russian radio station. The letter was reportedly signed by PR officer Georgy Gudim-Levkovich.
Nevertheless, Pavlenko promised earlier this month he would green light a gay Pride event on August 2, after saying LGBT activists were “getting on my nerves.”
“On August 2, we’ll let them [the LGBT movement] go ahead for sure. I guarantee it. To let off steam,” he reportedly said during a council meeting.
LGBT activists, however, assumed he was lying and called his bluff by filing a request for an event for up to 100 people. Their request did not include any alternative locations for the event because “there are no places without any children.”
“Every year on August 2, current and former paratroopers wearing blue-and-white striped shirts and often in an inebriated state celebrate by meeting up and wandering city streets and parks across Russia,” the Moscow Times writes . “The day is notorious for two common sights: paratroopers frolicking in fountains and picking fights with hapless passers-by.”
