On the 2nd of June ambassador of Great Britain in Ukraine Leigh Turner (photo on the right) had an informal meeting with activists of national movement for gay rights. Ambassador Plenipotentiary of the Netherlands Ron Keller also arrived for this meeting which took place in the residence of Ambassador of Great Britain (photo on the left).

During the meeting Ukrainian activists for the gay rights shared their impressions about the Second National Conference "Partnership and Development" which took place last week (28-30 of May this year) with financial support of International Alliance for HIV\AIDS in Ukraine.

Participants discussed problems of peace meetings and demonstrations, in particular prohibition for public actions of gay community in Nikolaev, attacks of Public Association "Freedom" (Vseukrainskoye Ob’edinenie "Svoboda") against gay activists in Lvov, police raids in gay establishments in Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk.

During discussion there were touched upon the issues regarding fair distribution of financial recourses dedicated for preventive measures against HIV\AIDS among homosexual men and palliative support HIV-positive gays.

"Democracy is not a right of the majority to take away human rights of minorities", - said Keller, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Netherlands in Ukraine. "Democracy is when the rights of all the society are taken into consideration and first of all the rights of minorities."

"Attitude towards homosexuals is a check out of the society maturity", mentioned Turner, the Ambassador of Great Britain in Ukraine. "Tolerance is an indicator of democratic society. In Western Europe it took many years for democracy to establish as we can see it now. We hope that Ukraine as a country with great potential can continue its rapid development."