Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Police mistake marathon for gay pride parade


Police in the Kaliningrad region have mistaken a marathon for a gay pride parade.

Several athletes gathered in the town center of Sovetsk on Saturday for the run, but were approached by police, who detained some of them, including teenagers.

Police later explained they had been falsely tipped-off about a planned but illegal gay pride march in the town.

Organizing pride parades has long been a big problem among activists in Russia’s gay community.

In Moscow, they have been unsuccessfully applying for permission to hold a parade for several years – with former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov branding them "satanic" on one occasion.

The bans have always been warmly supported by the Russian Orthodox Church, with its officials supporting what they say is the authorities' right to ban any propaganda based on its potential moral damage to the people.

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