Moscow bans gay pride

Moscow Mayor Yuri Lushkov has banned pride celebrations in Moscow, scheduled for next month -- the twelfth year in a row the city has refused to issue permits to LGBT rights groups. Pride organizers have planned to hold a civil rights conference and a march on May 31, the 15th anniversary of the abolishment laws against homosexuality in Russia. The sodomy law was revoked on May 27, 1993. "The [city] council will act decisively and uncompromisingly to prevent attempts to hold such events because society is overwhelmingly opposed to the gay lifestyle and philosophy," Lushkov's spokesperson Sergei Tsoi told the Interfax news agency. Tsoi said the council was concerned about threats of violence made by ultra-nationalist and radical Orthodox groups. "There could be bloodshed and no one wants that," Tsoi said. But Luzhkov himself has been a vocal opponent of the growing visibility of gays in Moscow. "This is not a question of security. It is only a question of the personal hatred of the Moscow mayor towards gay people," Gay community leader Nikolay Alexeyev told the Moscow bureau of the Agence France Press. Last year the mayor refused a parade license citing security concerns. Gays, many of them from the Europen Union, marched anyway. About 20 people were arrested at the May 27 parade, including Alexeyev, two European parliamentarians and British gay advocate Peter Tatchell. Charges against the foreigners were later dropped and Alexeyev was fined $1000 rubles -- about $40. Alexeyev and other community leaders went to court in Moscow attempting to have the city's action overturned. They lost and took the case to the European Court for Human Rights. Last year, in another case against the mayor a Moscow court tossed out a lawsuit accusing Lushkov of libel over claims he made that gay rights marches were "satanic." The court ruled that Moscow Pride leaders had failed to prove that the remarks were incendiary or intended to vilify gays in general. In January, a Moscow judge acquitted 13 gay activists arrested last month for staging a protest outside a polling station during national elections.