Saint-Petersburg’s authorities have invented a new ground to ban gay public events. "Equality" LGBT society’s internet site reports that the organizer of Slavic gay pride - LGBT organization "Equality", received an answer from officials of Vasileostrovskiy District Municipality that refused to authorize the gay event saying that "the event threatens safety of road traffic in immediate proximity to the itinerary of the gay pride due to distracting drivers’ attention from the road traffic situation". As an alternative to the requested itinerary the officials proposed "to march through the industrial zone of the district".

Petrogradskiy district municipality have also refused to authorize the gay event saying that "the itinerary goes in immediate proximity to the government’s body".

Yury Gavrikov, the leader of "Equality", is cited on his LGBT organization’s web site www.spb-pride.ru (English version >>) as saying that "in the past his organization had faced with the fact that local authorities made its’ non-authorizing decisions as long as possible". "It seems that this time the officials needed five working days to carefully look for the government’s body on the way of pride’s requested itinerary and this cause became the ground for refusal without giving any alternative itinerary. It is a solid ground to judicially object the decision made by Petrogradskiy district municipality", said Yury Gavrikov.

Reminder: earlier gay activists from St.Petersburg won some legal cases in local courts against municipalities of Petrogradskiy, Central, Moskovskiy and Admiralteyskiy district municipalities. The courts’ judgments unambiguously confirmed illegality of local authorities’ ban to hold LGBT actions in Saint-Petersburg and later those courts’ judgments were verified by the higher judicial body - the City Court of Saint Petersburg.

English translation presented by Yerdna Bananes