Follow a live UK Gays News blog of this week's events in Moscow at:
http://www.ukgaynews.org.uk/Archive/10/May/2701.htm


Full statements of participants in Moscow press conference today denouncing authorities' banning of Gay Pride.
Nikolai Alekseev, Moscow Pride Chief Organizer

In Moscow, we can only witness that the EU sold the human rights against economical interests. We almost organized an event with the Danish Embassy which was finally last minute canceled after a meeting of the EU diplomats based in Moscow.

On one hand, the EU says that it holds human rights discussion with Russia but these talks are only leading no where. Why the Swedish can send a Minister to the Pride in Vilnius? Why the French Ambassadors can walk in the Prides of Bucharest or Vilnius? Why all the EU Embassies can come with joint statements after the Vilnius Pride was first banned? And in Russia, they simply cannot say anything. No Embassy can issue a statement of support and I am not even talking of organizing an event.

It seems that the Vienna Convention which we are told by the European prevent them to express any position applies only in Russia or in Belarus but not at all in Latvia, Poland and Romania where the British Embassies are used to fly Rainbow flags on Pride days. The European Commission will tell you that they give money to some LGBT organizations in Russia. This is just about it.

They are ready to write a check to avoid having to speak, simply to soothe their conscience. We do not need money. We do not want it. We do not need to get paid to fight for our rights. We do not intend to be employees of the European Commission. We simply want political support.

We do not oppose the rights of people to protest and say what they think against homosexuality. They have the same right than us to express themselves. They simply should do it in a dignify and peaceful manner.

Andy Thayer, co-founder of the Chicago based Gay Liberation Network

Coming from a country which illegally imprisons people without trial, tortures them, and has troops occupying over 130 countries around the world, I will not presume to speak about human rights on behalf of my government.

Rather, I would like to speak in the tradition of those who organized against that government in order to win greater rights. And there is no better example of that than Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who said that an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Dr. King and other civil rights heroes taught that unjust laws sometimes have to be broken in order to make civil rights progress. That is why this Saturday, this gay pride flag I brought from Chicago will fly on the streets of Moscow along with Russian gay pride flags, whether there is permit or not. This is the way that civil rights progress has always been made.

Finally, I would say to the leader of my government, Mr. Obama, it is very easy to speak out in favor of human rights in countries to which you are opposed. It is a far more difficult thing to speak out in favor of human rights at home, and in countries to which you are allied.

Recently Mr. Obama you cut a nuclear arms deal with the Russian government. It is time now to speak out against the ban on Moscow Pride scheduled for this Saturday. Russian gays and lesbians who have been so courageously organizing for their freedom, and the freedom of all Russians, deserve no less.

Volker Beck, Member of German Parliament

The decision of the court to ban the 3 pickets is breaching Russian law on freedom of assembly as well as the European Convention on Human Rights. We have a clear precedent from the European Court of Human Rights in the case of the ban of the Warsaw Gay Pride. It is the same case here in Moscow than in Poland.

Right to freedom of assembly for LGBT people has to be respected and the government has to ensure it manages security. Security cannot be an excuse for banning a peaceful event and Russia will loose the case at the European Court because of the wrong decision of the mayor.

We are here to support this right to freedom of assembly and I can understand the anger of Nikolai Alekseev and the activists of the organization GayRussia that the support of the international community is weak. I was 2 weeks ago in Vilnius and on this pride the Ambassadors of France, Great Britain, Czech Republic, The Netherlands, Spain were present, they were part of the demonstration and spoke at the event.

I hope that next year we will all be able to attend the fist legal gay pride.

Louis-Georges Tin, Founder of the International Day Against Homophobia, President of the IDAHO Committee

I was here in 2006 already and I have a feeling that every year we have to do the same thing. This should be a day of Pride for all and this is a day of shame for the Mayor of Moscow and the Russian Courts. Here the mayor of Moscow is saying that being gay is satanic while when he travels abroad in Paris or Berlin, he accepts to work with the openly gay Mayors Delanoe and Wowereit.

I want to salute the courage and the generosity of our friends here who are everyday fighting against homophobia in a tensed environment.

We are calling President Medvedev to interfere against this unjust breach of freedom of assembly for LGBT people in Russia which has been ongoing now for five years. We call the EU, US and Canadian Embassies in Moscow to issue a joint statement in support of Moscow Pride like it has been the case weeks ago in Vilnius and Bucharest and to monitor next Saturday's planned action by the LGBT community.

The International community can no longer ignore the basic breach of freedom that LGBT people faces in Moscow simply because of geopolitical concerns. The European Convention on Human Rights applies in Russia in the same way it applies in Lithuania or Romania.

Peter Tatchell, Coordinator of the British LGBT Human Rights Group OutRage!, Human Rights Spokesperson for the Green Party of England and Wales

The ban on Moscow pride is illegal and Mayor Luzhkov is a criminal for banning it. He should be put on trial for violating the Russian constitution. The real criminals are not the organizers of Moscow Pride, but the mayor of Moscow and the judges who uphold this illegal ban.

We know victory and freedom will come. The European court will overturn this ban very soon. President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin are colluding with this ban by failing to order it to be overturned.

I call upon the Russian President and Prime Minister to show leadership by publicly condemning the ban and by calling on the mayor of Moscow to guarantee freedom of expression and the right to protest to the gay, and straight, citizens of Moscow and Russia. I call on them to reaffirm the human rights of all Russian people, many whose rights are under threat.

Russia is a great nation with a proud and great history. So many important figures in Russian history have been gay, including Sergei Eisenstein, Peter Tchaikovsky, Rudolph Nureyev, Sergei Dagialev, Modest Muggursky and Nikolai Gogol. These are just a few of the many great gay and bisexual icons of Russian history and culture. Their contributions to Russian history deserves to be acknowledged and celebrated.