SEPTEMBER 2010

Sep 27:  Serbia:  Belgrade Gay Pride: Serbian Government Must Take a Stand Against Exclusion and Intolerance – Amnesty.  The Serbian authorities must ensure that the 2010 Belgrade Pride – the first in nearly 10 years – goes ahead unobstructed on October 10 in central Belgrade, Amnesty International said this afternoon.

Sep 21:  Russia:  Russian Gay Activist Alekseev Arrested With Others At Anti-Luzhkov Rally in Moscow.  Nikolai Alekseev, Russia’s high profile gay activist, was among eleven activists reported to have been arrested outside Moscow City Hall this evening.  They were taking part in a demonstration against the homophobic mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, and his “faggots” remark which a Moscow court ruled rfecently was not hate speech.

Sep 19:  Russia:  English Translation of Russian Gay Activist Nikolai Alekseev’s Account of His Kidnapping: As It Was ... My Abduction.  By Nikolai Alekseev.  On September 15th nothing could have prepared me for what happened over the next three days.

Sep 17:  Russia:  Russian Gay Activist: “I Never Was in Minsk – I Never Sent Any SMS Messages.   “Abducted” Alekseev surfaces in Russia, not Belarus.  “I never was in Minsk … My phone was taken from me two days ago …”  These are the actual – and remarkable – words of Nikolai Alekseev, the gay Russian activist and chief organiser of Moscow Pride, who has surfaced somewhere in Russia.

Sep 17:  Russia/Belarus:  Questions Have to be Answered by Authorities in Russia and Belarus as Doubts Emerge About Well-Being of Russian Gay Activist.  Commentary.   Has Russian gay activist Nikolai Alekseev actually been released?  And is he really in Minsk?  These are questions being asked by Belarusian gay activists in Minsk this afternoon

Sep 16:  UK/Italy:  Italian Gay Group to Join London Protests Against State Visit by Pope.  Three members of the Rome-based LGBT group Circolo di Cultura Omosessuale Mario Mieli are travelling to Britain to take part in this weekend’s protests in London against the Papal state visit.

Sep 16:  Russia:  MEP on Russia Gay Rights: Alekseev’s Arrest Is of “Deep Concern”.   An MEP has expressed “deep concern” following the arrest yesterday evening of Nikolai Alekseev, the high-profile Russian gay activist who was detained at Domodedovo Airport in Moscow as he was about to board a Swiss Air Lines flight to Geneva.  Sarah Ludford, the LibDem MEP who sits with the ALDE group in the European Parliament, hit out at the Russian authorities today.

Sep 16:  Russia:  Alekseev: “They Want Me to Withdraw the Complaints to European Court over Moscow Gay Pride”.  Russian authorities have detained the organiser of Moscow Gay Pride, Nikolai Alekseev, and are requiring him to abandon a picket, demanding the resignation of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov.  The authorities are also demanding that he withdraws lawsuits lodged with the European Court of Human Rights over the banning of Moscow Gay Prides over the past five years.

Sep 15:  Russia:  Russian Gay Activist Arrested at Moscow Airport As He Was About to Board Swiss Air Lines Flight to Geneva.  Russia’s best known gay rights activist was arrested this evening at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport.  And there are concerns as, so far, officials are not giving out any information about his whereabouts.

Sep 13:  Serbia:  Authorities in Belgrade Pledge Protection for Gay Pride as Hate Graffiti Appears in City.  Within hours of last week’s announcement of the date for Gay Pride in Belgrade, hate graffiti started to appear in the Serbian capital.  “We are waiting for you” is one such example reported by Belgrade television station B92.

Sep 10:  European Union:  European Commission Should Push EU-Wide Gay Partnership Recognition – Ludford.  Euro-MPs have demanded that the European Commission should forcefully push all EU member states to fully recognise same-sex partnerships (registered and married) contracted in another EU country.  Note: This page contains verbatim transcriptions of selected major speeches in the European Parliament debate, late on Tuesday evening, on cross-EU recognition of legal same-sex marriages/partnerships.

Sep 10:  UK:  Gay Catholic Priest to Speak at ‘Protest the Pope’ Rally.  Father Bernard Lynch, a gay Irish-born Roman Catholic priest now living in London, is set to speak at the ‘Protest the Pope’ march and rally which takes place in the capital later this month.

Sep 7:  Serbia:  Belgrade Gay Pride Set for October. Details of the planned Belgrade Gay Pride, to be staged in the Serbian capital on October 10, were revealed today at a press conference.

Sep 1:  Russia:  No Gay Activists Among the 70 Arrested at Moscow Demo.  The fifteen gay activists who joined the ‘Strategy 31’ demonstration in Moscow’s Triumph Square yesterday escaped arrest, GayRussia is reporting today.  It was the first time that gay activists joined the regular demonstration, held regularly of the 31 of appropriate months, organised by Russian opposition groups to protest the lack of official compliance of the country’s 31st article of its constitution..