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Moscow court upholds 100-year ban on gay pride events

Published time: August 17, 2012 09:04
Edited time: August 17, 2012 13:04
A participant attends an unauthorized rally staged by LGBT activists on Moscow's Tverskaya Street. (RIA Novosti/Andrey Stenin)

The Moscow City Court has confirmed for the second time its ruling banning all LGBT pride events in the Russian capital for the next century.

The court rejected a cassation appeal filed by Nikolai Alekseyev, the leader of a Russian gay rights community and the organizer of previous gay pride events. Alekseyev wanted the case to be passed to the Presidium of the Moscow City Court for reconsideration.

“In the nearest future we will contest the authorities’ actions over the 100-year ban on gay pride events in the European Court of Human Rights. Through this we will eventually achieve that the bans are recognized as unlawful, not only for the past, but for the future gay parades in the Russian capital,” the Interfax news agency quoted Alekseyev as saying.

The activist said he would report about the ruling to the Ministers’ Committee of the Council of Europe, which in September will consider the legality of the Alekseyev vs. Russia case that banned LGBT pride events in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Earlier, the Tverskoy district court ruled in favor of the Moscow municipal government's March 2012 to May 2112 ban on public LGBT parades. The ruling came after LGBT rights campaigners discovered a loophole in Russian legislation, and submitted requests for 102 LGBT pride parades to the Moscow Mayor’s office.

In response, they received a letter with a quote from the legal regulations prohibiting the parades. Current law requires city authorities to either allow or ban the planned event within 15 days of the request.

After the initial ruling, Alekseyev said that he and his group did not believe they would receive a license for the parade, but rather wanted a formal reason to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights.

The Russian government began a legal campaign this year against alleged homosexual propaganda. A law against promotion of homosexuality and pedophilia was approved and enacted in St. Petersburg, prompting a group of parliamentarians to suggest approving a similar national law.

Two individuals in St. Petersburg were recently sentenced under the law for displaying a poster reading 'Being gay is normal' on a street near a kindergarten.

The bill has been widely criticized by Russian LGBT and human rights activists, as well as international human rights groups. Protest rallies outside of Russian consulates took place in several countries throughout the world.

Comments (93)

Anonoymous (unregistered) 30.11.2012 09:46

Those guards are like saying, "I better watch my six o'clock wuth these guys around". 

+1

Undo

Clair (unregistered) 21.08.2012 08:50

@ Llirik, who wear no Brequet
Ban ..ban….ban…my dear Big Brother..you yet again are imploring to the STATE’s authority, eventhough you presumably think that right to promote homosexual life style (as it would happen in the pride parades) stems from naturally born (given by God) right to choose between different kind of sexual activity. If look for theories of human rights origin  you will inevitably come across  remarkable notion of a human right  given by God with the birth of each human being. . In case anyone still believes in their God given right to bleach himself down there, there is no law preventing anyone from doing it, its ultimately up to him. But, please keep your “bedtime” stories and parades to yourself whatever they are.  Law is often defined by cultural and ethical norms of a given society. It can be forced upon as taken from the absolutely foreign and alien culture for the simple reason that it will not survive- it will be amended sooner or later. Russian mentality has been hugely shaped up by Orthodox faith. It’s not news. Russian state was born exactly when Russians were christmated into Orthodoxy. Even being a Russian atheist or a seldom church goer will never lead you to stripping you off of that morality concepts which are in your DNA.  In America there has been always a lot of confusion and misunderstanding of how to deal with majority rights versus minority rights in order to avoid tyranny and please each group. Adoption gay marriages law shows the worst handling of that concept ever. And what some Western people are failing empirically to observe is that when citizens are gradually start losing their moral backbone the state oppression alleviates threefold. Deal with it now..

+1

Undo

Llirik, who wears no Brequet (unregistered) 20.08.2012 23:25

Clair (unregistered) wrote in #9
Good day for Russia....
Then ban cheating and ban divorce between straight couples. Ban SEPARATION of any straight couple, because surely that is not supportive of the family unit or societal cohesion, surely that form of non-loving *may* be based on a Biblical sin or conflict indicative of or based on a Biblical sin. For instance, separations between couples may happen because one person cheats (adultery), or is jealous of another (envy), or simply loses their affections (counter to 1 Cor. 13 and the precept to "love one's neighbor as yourself" - meaning you cannot stop loving anyone, including especially your significant other at any stage of a relationship, and then cannot separate from them if there is no wrong done to you or vices exhibited within the person). The first two themselves, adultery and envy, are other grave sins (at least in Catholicism), to go along with fornication and sexual gratification of ANY sort. 

Also, what you WANT may be distinctly different from what the Bible PREACHES, or what reason dictates as analogously bannable situations and populations if the same principles for which this group is banned are extrapolated to all walks of life, thereby demolishing your claim that governments, in your opinion, should not dictate every sexual action and idiosyncrasy. It isn't about anyone's guilty conscience - it is a question of conscience and moral authority/culpabilit y in general.

+1

Undo

View all comments (93)
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