Moscow – Moscow’s mayor vowed Monday never to allow a gay rights parade, calling such events “satanic,” but activists said they would defy a city ban.
Yury Luzhkov and city authorities barred activists from staging a parade last year, citing the threat of violence. Activists ignored the ban and were attacked by right-wing protesters and detained by police.
Speaking at a Kremlin event attended by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Luzhkov again lambasted gay and lesbian groups. “Last year, Moscow came under unprecedented pressure to sanction the gay parade, which can be described in no other way than as satanic,” he said to applause in comments broadcast on a city-controlled TV channel. “We did not let the parade take place then, and we are not going to allow it in the future.”
Meanwhile, Russian gay activists said they were challenging the city’s ban of their parade in an appeal to the European Court for Human Rights and pledged to hold a similar march in late May.
“Trying to silence us, the Russian authorities denied us one of the fundamental human rights. The European justice will have the last say in this case,” activist and parade organizer Nikolai Alexeyev said in a statement posted on the website www.gayrussia.ru.
