An Eruption of Violence Feared in Moscow Over LGBT Rights

by Michael Jones · 2009-05-14 12:38:00 UTC
Topics:

Moscow

Moscow has a long and dirty history of suppressing LGBT rights.  For years their mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, has banned gay pride parades, and has watched as militant Russian Orthodox churchgoers and neo-fascists attacked gay rights demonstrators in his city.

This year, things are getting tense yet again.  This weekend Moscow is set to hold the Eurovision Song Contest final, a competition that has a large LGBT following.  That fact is not lost on LGBT activists in Russia, who hope to use the competition as a means of standing up for equal rights.  Their hope was to hold a rally during the Eurovision Song Contest.

But they've been denied a permit by Russian authorities.  Incidentally, guess who was given a permit to hold a rally during the Eurovision Contest?  A group of hardcore nationalists and religious fundamentalists who have gone on record as calling LGBT people "spiritual terrorists" who want to destabilize the country.

All of this is set to make for a toxic mess over the weekend, with many worried that violence will ensue.  Nikolai Alekseev, a leader in Russia's LGBT rights movement, has said that supporters of gay rights will march this weekend.  He told the BBC:

There will be outrage around the world… if on the 16 May people are being arrested and beaten on the streets of Moscow hours before the Eurovision Song Contest final.  It will be a disgrace for Russia.

For a nation that all-too-frequently clamps down on sexual minorities with an iron fist, this weekend is a chance for Russia to champion basic civil rights, like freedom of speech and the freedom to assemble.

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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