■ Moscow City Court photo courtesy GayRussia.ru

MOSCOW, November 8, 2007 (GayRussia).  An appeal by the organisers of this year’s Moscow Gay Pride was dismissed today.

The Moscow City Court threw out the appeal, ruling that the decision of the lower Taganski district court that the ban by Moscow authorities on pickets as part of May’s Moscow Pride was lawful.

Two pickets in support for tolerance and respect of the rights and freedoms of homosexual people in Russia were offered by the organisers of the gay pride as an alternative to the march on the same day which was banned by Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov.

One of the pickets was planned on Tverskaya Square in front of City Hall while the other was planned in Novopushkinsky Skver in downtown Moscow.

Organisers planned that between 50 to 100 participants will take part.  Prefecture of the Central Administrative Area of Moscow denied the permission for both events giving reference to Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights which allows to ban a public event for security reasons.

On August 24, Taganski district court of Moscow ruled that the ban of the pickets by the prefecture was lawful because the authorities were unable to provide the security of their participants in the conditions when the conduct of those events provoke such a strong negative reaction from the majority of the society.

In their appeal to Moscow City Court, lodged on September 10, Pride organisers said that Russian legislation does not allow an absolute ban of the public event and only allows to the authorities to offer an alternative place or time.  This was not done by the prefecture.

Organisers asked the court to overturn the local court decision and to rule that pickets’ bans were unlawful.

“The hearing lasted not more than five minutes,” said Nikolai Alekseev, one of the organisers.

“I have seen many things in Moscow courts, but I never come across such a prearranged hearing.

“The panel of three judges debated the decision for one minute, though it was clear that the decision was known to them long before.  Earlier these same judges already dismissed our appeals against other decisions of Moscow authorities.”

“Now, we are waiting for the last decision on our appeal against the ruling of Tverskoi district court which said that the ban on the Pride march was lawful.

“Then we will send our second application against Russia to the European Court of Human Rights,” he said.

An application to the European Court over the ban on the Moscow Gay Pride march in 2006 has already been lodged in Strasbourg.

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Posted: 08 November 2007 at 13:00 (UK time)