Saint Petersburg Pride: over 100 participants
"The situation is calm and friendly. Participants are engaging in the creation of a handmade rainbow flag" - say the organizers about the action that ended after 4 pm today at the Champ de Mars in Saint Peterburg (link in Russian).
It was the fifth Saint Peterburg Pride and it gathered 100 to 150 participants. Despite the stable situation, several provocations could not be avoided... "Orthodox" extremists acted with sophistication this year. While last year they were directly threatening the activists, this time they brought the children to get the footage for legal accusations on the ground of Mizoulina law later, say the news site Telegraph.
BaltInfo agency is reporting the police being very attentive in keeping order. The action’s location had been eclipsed in metal fence. All participants had been screened on the approach. One of the organizers Yuriy Gavrikov, for example, was asked to leave the scissors outside.
The Pride was flying the very rainbow flag from the last year’s event, that extremists were trying to destroy. It had traces of dirt and tears. That event ended up in a fist fight, followed by detentions of the participants and attackers.
Today’s action was under monitoring by the "United group of public inspection" (OGON, link in Russian). They reported that many police officers on guard were not wearing badges, as required by law. They did not respond to requests to remove the minors, brought in by the Pride’s opponents. One of the participants, carrying the poster "Sodomy is sweeter then honey" was detained. The police found the "Orthodox symbolics" in it and argue that the slogan is offending to the religious.
TV Rain station has called the held Pride to be "the most liberal" in Saint Petersburg’s history, mostly explaining that fact by the upcoming governor elections and "the new enemies" of the Russian Federation, picked up this year.
BaltInfo agency is reporting the police being very attentive in keeping order. The action’s location had been eclipsed in metal fence. All participants had been screened on the approach. One of the organizers Yuriy Gavrikov, for example, was asked to leave the scissors outside.
The Pride was flying the very rainbow flag from the last year’s event, that extremists were trying to destroy. It had traces of dirt and tears. That event ended up in a fist fight, followed by detentions of the participants and attackers.
Today’s action was under monitoring by the "United group of public inspection" (OGON, link in Russian). They reported that many police officers on guard were not wearing badges, as required by law. They did not respond to requests to remove the minors, brought in by the Pride’s opponents. One of the participants, carrying the poster "Sodomy is sweeter then honey" was detained. The police found the "Orthodox symbolics" in it and argue that the slogan is offending to the religious.
TV Rain station has called the held Pride to be "the most liberal" in Saint Petersburg’s history, mostly explaining that fact by the upcoming governor elections and "the new enemies" of the Russian Federation, picked up this year.
