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Rainbow NewsSaint-Petersburg: LGBTrally was ruined by Orthodox aggression
12 Oct. 2013
These provocations by Orthodox activists and cossacks had been planned beforehand and aimed to discredit the gay community and ruin the meeting that was to be held today on Mars Field in the center of Saint-Petersburg. Homophobes were acting boldly and openly, ignoring the norms of Russian laws. Reports of the atrocities in the center of the northern capital were circulated by the project "Grani.Ru".
Local mass media, including the "Zaks.ru", note that "the Saint-Petersburg metropolitan police was reluctant and refused to protect LGBT activists on Mars Field" although the action had been authorized by local authorities. "Piter.tv" adds that the police ignored "all calls and complaints of sexual minorities' supporters".
The situation developed in the following way: orthodoxes and cossacks who carried Christian attributes started to gather on Mars Field before the LGBT meeting started. When LGBT citizens - organizers and participants of the authorized public action - tried to go through the clericals' mob and start the meeting, nationalists, cossacks and clericals blocked their way. Orthodox prayers and chants were accompanied by insults and verbal offenses addressed to gay and human rights activists.
The police stayed away reluctant until the barefaced scuffle began. Orthodoxes tore out gay attributes from LGBT activists, were aggressive and used force. The police then began to arrest indiscriminately. According to different sources, the police have detained from 20 to 60 people.
Natalia Tsymbalova, the leader of the "Straight Alliance for LGBT Equality" gave comments to journalists on the situation: "23 people of ours (around half of participants) were arrested on the grounds that they were allegedly using obscene language, behaved like hooligans and were disturbing citizens. That is complete nonsense! As for me, I was not arrested", she added on her VK.com personal account (link in Russian). "But they tore my Rainbow flag away. I've managed to unveil it only for a couple of seconds when we dashed the block around to Hyde-park... After several attacks gay haters succeeded to pull the rainbow flag out of my hands by knocking me off my feet. I have bruises on my hands and knees. In general, today it was a total trash...".
"Gay haters ruined the action with the absolute connivance of the police", says Natalia. "The police was reluctant to help us to break through the blocks of homophobes. The latter were trolling us, pressing us down, encircled us, were pressing on us, attacking us verbally and insulting us...".
Gay and human rights activists have being detained by the police for more than three hours. Alexandr Kobrinskiy, a member of the Saint-Petersburg Parliament, "Yabloko" faction, has already responded to the developing situation. "...My attempts to speed up the case in the police and to get them freed are still ineffective. According to the arrested, the police is writing protocols, charging them with obscene language or hooliganism. This cop procedure is very well known by me since the early 2000. The papers are being written but they are not going to be filed to the court. Just to have some excuse for the action's ruin. They do very well know that their charges would be groundless in court, this is too obvious a lie and they are not eager to give false evidences once more...", wrote Kobrinskiy on his VK.com page (link in Russian).
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