Nikolai Alexeyev was among the roughly dozen activists arrested Sunday attempting to hold a Gay Pride parade in downtown Moscow.
The administration of Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin had rejected the activists’ application to hold a Gay Pride event in the city for the seventh year in a row. Organizer Alexeyev said the rally would be staged without the city’s authorization.
The event was supposed to celebrate the 19th anniversary of the decriminalization of gay relations in Russia, RIA-Novosti reported.
The activists were arrested outside the Moscow City Duma (City Council). The Moscow Times reported that three of those arrested were Orthodox Christian activists who planned to disrupted the protest.
Other reports showed a man holding a rainbow flag being physically attacked by an anti-gay rights demonstrator. (Raw video of the altercation is embedded in the right panel of this page. Visit our video library for more videos.)
Former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov aggressively shut down any unauthorized pro-gay demonstrations, which he called “Satanic acts” and “one of the factors in the spread of HIV infection.”
The City Duma in currently debating an ordinance which would ban “homosexual propaganda” similar to one already in effect in St. Petersburg.
by On Top Magazine Staff
Source – On Top Magazine
