Wide support for the Pride Rally in Podgorica, Montenegro
Montenegrin LGBTIQ Association “Queer Montenegro” is satisfied with the widespread domestic, regional, and European support which followed the announcement yesterday that the Pride Rally will be held in Podgorica in October 2013.
We are very pleased that a large number of the LGBTIQ people from Montenegro sent their support by social networks.
We express particular gratitude to the professionalism of the Police Directorate of Montenegro which contacted us yesterday, as well as publicly announced that the first meeting on the cooperation of the organization of the Pride Rally will be scheduled soon.
The police has a crucial role in securing the conditions necessary for a peaceful Pride Rally, and thus for the future progress of the struggle to protect human rights of the LGBTIQ people in Montenegro. We expect the police to have the capacity to fulfill that role very professionally.
Expectedly, encouraging messages have arrived yesterday from the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights and the Montenegrin Ombudsman. Queer Montenegro will initiate the meetings with representatives of these two institutions this week.
The support to the Pride Rally was sent from the representatives of the political parties as well. In addition to the open support to our activities, which the Liberal Party of Montenegro has already expressed, this time the support to the organization of the Pride Rally was given by the member of the Parliamentary Board for Equality, Nada Drobnjak from the Democratic Party of Socialists, as well as by the representative of the Positive Montenegro, Azra Jasavic. Both confirmed theirs and their representatives’ presence at the Rally.
We are very pleased by the support which has arrived from the European Parliament, as well as by the statement of Mr Jelko Kacin in which he clearly conveyed the importance of the successful Pride Rally in Montenegro this year.
The successful organization and the support to the Pride Rally in October this year will, without a doubt, confirm that our state is ready and willing to show that human rights of the LGBTIQ people are respected in reality as much as on paper. Queer Montenegro wishes to contribute to the realization of this goal, together with the LGBTIQ people and other NGOs working in the field of human rights in Montenegro.
Finally, for their solidarity and support, we want to thank organizations which fight for the human rights of the LGBTIQ people across the region and which have already confirmed their participation in the first Pride Rally.
Queer Montenegro continues to work on drawing together the largest possible number of the LGBTIQ people, representatives of the civil society and state institutions. We repeat once again that we are open for cooperation with all who want to support the peaceful protest of the LGBTIQ people – the Pride Rally in Podgorica in October this year – and thereby help the struggle for human rights.
Danijel Kalezic
Montenegrin LGBTIQ Association „Queer Montenegro“
Source – Queer Montenegro
