... and ask foreign Embassies to monitor Saturday's Gay Pride March
The IDAHO Committee of International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO) has asked Jérôme Lambert, member of the French Parliament and President of the France/Belarus friendship group, to raise the issue of the ban of the planned peaceful Slavic Gay Pride event due to be held on Saturday with the delegation of Belarusian MPs visiting France this week.
Last Saturday, the deputy head of Minsk City Executive Committee Mikhail Titenkov, notified the organisers of the Slavic Gay Pride in Minsk that their event was banned. The city official has said that the ban is justified, arguing that public events are not allowed near underground pedestrian crossings and metro stations. No alternate location was proposed.
Mr. Titenkov is known by local activists for denying any official request for public demonstrations of the local LGBT community.
The IDAHO Committee has reminded Belarus that it ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which guarantees freedom of assembly to all citizens.
Belarus is not a member state of the Council of Europe – its ‘Special Guest’ membership was suspended in January 1997 – and so there is no recourse to the European Court of Human Rights. However, the organisers of Slavic Gay Pride have said they will appeal the ban to the UN Human Rights Committee.
“We strongly condemn the decision of the Belarusian authorities which is in contradiction of the UN treaty ratified by the Republic of Belarus,” Louis-Georges Tin, founder and president of the IDAHO Committee, said last night.
“We further call on the European diplomacies represented in Minsk to monitor and support the organisers of the event,” he added.
Sergey Androsenko, co-organiser of the Slavic Pride and founder of the ‘GayBelarus’ LGBT group, pointed out that Minsk is only 169 kilometers from Vilnius where more than 100 western-Europeans including key members of foreign governments and members of parliaments took part in the Baltic Pride last Saturday.
“In Belarus, activists do not seek money,” commented Nikolai Alekseev, co-organiser of the Slavic Pride and vice president of the IDAHO Committee.
“The desperately need political support.”
An application for permit to hold the Slavic Gay Pride march was made on March 4, well ahead of the scheduled date of May 15. But the negative response from the Minsk authorities received less than a week ago makes it difficult for the organisers to challenge the ban in court before this coming Saturday.
Last September, the IDAHO Committee supported a major LGBT Conference in Minsk which attracted more than 100 participants. The event was hailed a success by the foreign diplomats who took part.
Slavic Gay Pride is the ‘union’ of Russian and Belarusian Pride organizers (Moscow, Minsk and St Petersburg). The Slavic Pride took place in May 2009 in Moscow on the day of the Eurovision Song Contest. The march was banned by the Mayor of Moscow and 32 Russian-Belarusian participants were arrested by the police and held in custody overnight.
The second Slavic Pride will take place in Minsk on Saturday May 15 at noon. Despite the ban, several events are planned later this week. These include seminar, a press conference, parties and the premiere of the Canadian documentary “Beyond Gay: The Politics of Pride”.
GayRussia.Ru, UkGaynews.org.uk
