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Will 3rd Try Be Lucky For Moscow Gays?

(Moscow) Moscow's LGBT community will make its third attempt to hold a gay pride parade in the Russian capital and this time organizers hope it will be allowed to go on.

Gay community leader Nikolay Alexeyev called on Moscow Mayor Yuri Lushkov to approve a permit for the march, which will follow an international LGBT human rights conference.

Alexeyev said the parade would be held on May 31, the 15th anniversary of the abolishment laws against homosexuality in Russia. The sodomy law was revoked on May 27, 1993.

Moscow's gay community has been at loggerheads with Lushkov since 1992 when he banned the first gay pride celebration.

Lushkov refused to grant a parade license, citing concerns about violence.

Despite the court ruling upholding the ban, marchers attempted to hold a parade. Police quickly moved in arresting more than 200 people including Alexeyev. The charges were later dropped.

Last year the mayor again refused a parade license and again gays, many of them from other courtiers in the EU marched anyway. About 20 people were arrested at the May 27 parade, including Alexeyev, two European parliamentarians and British gay advocate Peter Tatchell.

Charges against the foreigners were later dropped and Alexeyev was fined $1000 rubles - about $40. (story)

Alexeyev and other community leaders went to court attempting to have the city's action overturned. They lost and have gone to the European Court for Human Rights. The case has yet to be heard, although the court has ruled in favor of gays in similar cases where pride marches were banned in other former Communist countries. (story)

Last year, in another case against the mayor a Moscow court tossed out a lawsuit accusing Lushkov of libel over claims he made that gay rights marches were "satanic." (story)

The court ruled that Moscow Pride leaders had failed to prove that the remarks were incendiary or intended to vilify gays in general.

Earlier this month a Moscow judge acquitted 13 gay activists arrested last month for staging a protest outside a polling station during national elections. (story)

©365Gay.com 2008

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