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Livingstone and mayors of Paris and Berlin invited to Moscow Pride
Bertrand Delanoe
"Please take part in our conference and rally," plead organisers
"All of you also regularly take part in Gay Pride parades in your own cities"
Following last year's bloody climax to the unofficial Moscow Pride march, organisers have called on the mayors of Europe's most important cities to attend the 2008 rally. "You always support the right of homosexual people to openly manifest and publicly express themselves," they say in a letter to the three. "All of you also regularly take part in Gay Pride parades in your own cities."
Livingstone, Klaus Wowereit of Berlin and openly gay mayor Bertrant Delanoe, who was stabbed in a homophobic attack in his city of Paris, have all been vocal supporters of gay rights in their respective cities are being called on to add weight to the Moscow Pride organisers' attempts to really establish the event in the Russian capital following two years where they claim their right to assembly has been violated by the Moscow mayor's cancellation of the march.
"Taking into account the bans of the public Pride events in the Russian capital in 2006 and 2007, we are not sure that Mayor Luzkhov will permit Gay Pride manifestation this year," the letter goes on.
In last year's unauthorised march, campaigner Peter Tatchell and Right Said Fred singer Richard Fairbrass were attacked on camera and then arrested by Russian police, along with tens of other activists.
