By Nikolai Alexeyev
Principal organiser of Moscow Pride

MOSCOW, May 31, 2008 (GayRussia.ru)  —  Moscow Pride tomorrow, June 1, will take the form of a picket in front of the City Hall on the main street.  This year, activists, journalists and protesters will meet at 1pm.

We changed the date from today as it is more convenient for us — and the weather forecast is better.

I was amused to read recently in the French paper Le Canard Enchainé that OMOH (riot police) went to Paris to learn from the French riot police how to react in demonstrations.

We will see if the beatings we receive this year are softer!

Moscow Pride 2008 will be mostly Russian, even though it had officially twined with Sao Paulo Pride, the largest in the world, two weeks ago.  The street of the economical capital of Brazil were coloured with pictures from Moscow Pride.

It’s a symbolical support.

So, why the absence of foreign participation this year?

It’s hard to ask the same people to travel to Moscow every year.  I don’t want them to attend the event every year like they would make a pilgrimage.  It makes absolutely no sense and also our event is non-official and dangerous.

I understand that some do not want to experience the same ‘poor treatment’ from Moscow authorities every year.  It will also not change the position of the Russian authorities as we could witness up to now.

With no foreign presence, the Russian media will hardly be able to say that foreigners organized the event!

As the world already knows, Moscow will be hosting the Eurovision Song Contest next year.

And we have some ideas for several spectacular events around Eurovision.

Next month, we will be in contact with the European Broadcasting Union in Geneva to clarify a few points.

The date of Moscow Pride 2009 will be linked to Eurovision, which is an event famous throught the European gay community.

I would love to see a country promoting a song about tolerance and freedom of expression for everyone.

Looking back

We started our fight three years ago, on May, 2005. when we launched Project GayRussia on the second International Day Against Homophobia — the first we marked in Russia.

In May 2006, together with the Moscow Pride we hosted a Festival with several key events.  It was really great.  About 25 countries were represented.  Many foreign activists were with us and we hosted a large conference, the first of its kind in Russia.

Then last year, we used the same format.

This year, we are limiting the events to the Pride itself.

First of all, it takes a lot of energy and money to organise a festival.  Secondly, we did it already twice and there was no point in doing it again!

Thirdly, the Swissôtel Moscow, a five stars international hotel managed by Raffles International, cancelled the booking that we had made long in advance.  We will soon launch a court action against them.

A boycott action is planed in several properties of the chain worldwide by key activists. Believe us, they will have a hard time.

We also underline that our three-year fight has resulted in some positive achievements on other fronts.

Recently, we were successful against Russian authorities in the ban on gay blood.

Our fight to repeal the ban on blood donation by gays as paid back.  The Minister of Health has officially removed gays from their list of banned donors.

We worked a lot on that even, though we did not publicise it too much.  Several letters were sent to the authorities and demonstrations were organised.

It took time.  I know it can seem to be a small thing but it’s highly symbolical.  This is the first discrimination that is officially removed since gay sex was decriminalised 15 years ago.

I am happy to see that over the last two to three years, our group is still composed of the same people.  The question is not to work with 100 people.  The efficiency is to work with key people that you can trust.  If I look at the past of the Russian LGBT scene, our strategy is optimum.

Strasbourg — an eldorado for Moscow Pride?

Only the decision of the European Court of Human Rights can force Russia to recognise our right to march.

European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg made a precedent in May 2007 when they overruled a decision of Polish court which banned the Warsaw pride.  It was less than 18 nmonths from the time of the application to the court by Polish activists until the final decision passed.

The case lodged by Moscow Pride was sent to Strasbourg 16 months ago.  As of today the court has not even start communications between the parties.

Should we rent a bus to take thirty of us from Moscow to Strasbourg to demonstrate in front of the Court?  We have been thinking about doing that.

People have to understand that the ruling of Strasbourg is key to us.  Remember that it is extremely dangerous to organise Moscow Pride.

In the last two years, people were severely beaten.  There is blood over here.

As a result, activists have decided to flood the whole Russian judicial system with new applications.

The Moscow judges like to play with us.  We can create additional work for them.

We applied in May for five marches a day in five different areas of Moscow.  All have been denied.  All have been applied in court.  All will be sent to the European Court.

The court will have to consider not only 2006 and 2007 Moscow pride but also 155 banned gay marches of May 2008.

I can tell you that some people over here have started to understand what means to have potentially 158 decision overruled by the European Court.

The mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, expressed his “strong support” of the fight of LGBT activists for their essential rights in a letter sent to us.

Delanoe regretted that he could not be in Moscow due to an official visit planed on the same week end in another country.

I received the letter from Bertrand this morning.  He played a key role against Luzhkov in the press conferences at the last two M4 annual meetings — Berlin and London.  I thank him for his supportive words.

There have been rumours in the past year that the Moscow Mayor will be asked to leave office.  Since Medvedev took over at the Kremlin, the rumours have been at their peak within diplomatic circle and among politicians.  The President might change the governors of several regions by autumn.

Moscow is also considered as a region and its Mayor is since 2007 appointed by the President and no longer elected by people.

Prosecution of Moscow Mayor demanded

Earlier this month, along with Nikolai Baev and Kirill Nepomnjaschij, I applied to the General Prosecution, asking to initiate criminal investigation against the Mayor of Moscow for banning the gay pride because of his personal motives.

No one repealed Article 149 of the Criminal Code.  Mayor Luzhkov’s homophobia should be prosecuted.

We will never surrender.  Those who think that we will stop our fight before the Moscow Pride is allowed are wasting their time!

Russia will have to surrender to the decision of the European Court of Human Rights, or keep showing itself as an oil and gas producing dictatorship.

But if like this year, neither the Mayor of Moscow nor President Medvedev take their responsability next year, they will show that freedom of expression is still set at zero in Russia even after the end of the Soviet era.

Freedom of expression is granted by the Russian constitution. This right is non negotiable.  Anyone opposing this idea is breaching our constitution.

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