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Gay Pride News: The mayor of Moscow has banned the city's annual Gay Pride for the fifth time in five years.
By: Nigel Robinson
Moscow Gay Pride banned again
Moscow Gay Pride banned again
Moscow Pride banned again
The march, which was scheduled to take place on 29 May in central Moscow, has been banned on “security grounds”.
“They called me and said that they had banned it,” Moscow Pride organiser Nikolai Alexeyev told AFN, adding that he would attempt to get the decision overturned.
He promised that the march would go ahead nevertheless and possibly in the grounds of a foreign embassy if city approval could not be obtained.
Last year’s Moscow Gay Pride was also banned, but still went ahead, only to be broken up by riot police.
The Mayor of Moscow Yury Luzhkov holds fervent anti-gay views and has banned the four previous Moscow Gay Prides, calling them “satanic happenings”.
He has compared “same-sex so-called love” to “social plagues” such as drug abuse and xenophobia, and has said of gay people that “it is high time to crack down on them with all the power and justice of the law instead of talking about human rights."
There have also been reports that the website www.gayrussia.ru has been blocked to stifle news of the Gay Pride ban.
Homosexual acts were made legal in Russia in 1993.
