Nationalist radicals attacked Kiev Equality March with smoke bombs
Equality March that took place today at the fourth festival "Kyiv Pride" on Obolonska embankment of the Ukrainian capital, gathered about 300 participants, media reported.
A group of radicals tried to break through the police cordon, threw smoke bombs and sprayed tear gas. Five policemen were injured, two of them in the neck. One is now in critical condition.
Half an hour into the rally, the police urged the demonstrators to take off the activists vests and end the action. Gay activists headed to the nearest metro station, where new attañks by the radicals took place.
25 attackers were detained. Firecrackers, screwdrivers, knives and other assault devices seized. It is assumed that the attack was carried out by the Ukrainian organization "Right Sector", that had been banned in Russian Federation. Criminal proceedings on the article on hooliganism has been started.
Earlier radicals from the "Right Sector" were urging Kiev’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko prohibit the Equality March in order to avoid "trouble of any kind".
At the press conference in Kiev, the organizers of "Kyiv Pride" insisted on carrying out Equality March in which "representatives of the LGBT community not only are able to exercise their fundamental right to peaceful assembly, but can also publicly declare the problems that they face every day".
A day before the rally President Petro Poroshenko proclaimed that as a Christian and a European he sees no obstacles to the "gay parade" in Kiev.
Half an hour into the rally, the police urged the demonstrators to take off the activists vests and end the action. Gay activists headed to the nearest metro station, where new attañks by the radicals took place.
25 attackers were detained. Firecrackers, screwdrivers, knives and other assault devices seized. It is assumed that the attack was carried out by the Ukrainian organization "Right Sector", that had been banned in Russian Federation. Criminal proceedings on the article on hooliganism has been started.
Earlier radicals from the "Right Sector" were urging Kiev’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko prohibit the Equality March in order to avoid "trouble of any kind".
At the press conference in Kiev, the organizers of "Kyiv Pride" insisted on carrying out Equality March in which "representatives of the LGBT community not only are able to exercise their fundamental right to peaceful assembly, but can also publicly declare the problems that they face every day".
A day before the rally President Petro Poroshenko proclaimed that as a Christian and a European he sees no obstacles to the "gay parade" in Kiev.
