Moscow police arrest 40 at Eurovision gay protest

May 16, 2009

MOSCOW (AFP) – Russian police arrested about 40 people at a gay rights protest Saturday just hours before the Eurovision Song Contest final was to start in Moscow.

Protest organisers called for musicians to show solidarity by boycotting the contest, which Russia is hosting for the first time this year.

Riot police moved in swiftly after about 15 protestors shouted "Homophobia is the shame of Russia!" and "Equal rights for everyone!" near Moscow State University in the southwest of the city, an AFP journalist said.

The small group of protestors was detained and then police dragged away other activists who tried to speak to journalists.

British rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, who took part, said he had been detained with a group of 31 people at a Moscow police station.

"The police tactics were quite violent. People had their arms twisted up their backs and their wrists twisted... It was quite painful," Tatchell told AFP by telephone after he was released without charge.

A spokesman for Moscow police told RIA Novosti about 40 activists had been detained and were later released, some having been served with "administrative" warnings.

Echo of Moscow radio said there was still uncertainty about the whereabouts of gay activists from Belarus who had joined in the protest and been arrested.

"Reports by some media about rude or boorish treatment of those taken to police stations are false," the Moscow police spokesman told RIA Novosti news agency.

"There were no illegal actions by the police during the detentions of the offenders. All aspects of the arrests were recorded on video cameras in order to prevent further possible provocations," the spokesman added.

Along with Tatchell, others detained included Nikolai Alexeyev, the main organiser of the protest, and US gay rights activist Andy Thayer.

Alexeyev was seized after he approached the site of the protest with a man dressed in a bride's costume and heavy make-up.

He later called for an artists' boycott of Eurovision to protest the breakup of the "Slavic Gay Pride" parade.

"I call upon all of the artists who are due to perform at tonight's Eurovision to boycott tonight's event and send a message that Russia's state oppression of human rights is not acceptable," he said in a statement.

The Moscow city government has repeatedly denied gay activists permission to hold a gay pride parade in recent years, and those who showed up anyway have been arrested by police and attacked by ultra-nationalists.

"Today they are not only fighting for gay and lesbian freedom here in Russia, they are fighting for the soul of Russian democracy," US activist Thayer told reporters just before his arrest.

"If democracy is taken away from lesbian and gay people here in Russia, then other Russians have to fear for their freedom," said Thayer, a co-founder of the Chicago-based Gay Liberation Network.

Homophobia is widespread in Russia, which considered homosexuality a crime until 1993 and only ceased to classify it as mental illness in 1999.

Gay activists changed the location of their protest at the last minute to avoid a clash with right-wing counter-demonstrators who have disrupted similar events in the past.

Some anti-gay demonstrators gathered at the initially announced location of the protest, including members of an Orthodox Christian group.

Police arrested five of the Orthodox group's members, who were dressed in Cossack-style fur hats and robes, Interfax said.

Lesbian activist Irina Fet said at the gay rights protest that Russia unfairly denied rights to homosexuals.

"Gay rights do not exist in Russia. We are normal citizens just like anyone else. We want to show that we are people and that we aren't doing anything criminal," she said.