BY NATASHA BARSOTTI — At least 12 people, including three policemen and a journalist, were hospitalized when a small gay-rights march in Tbilisi, Georgia, marking International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia was attacked by a large anti-gay mob — led by priests — hurling rocks and eggs, The New York Times reports. 

“They wanted to kill all of us,”  Irakli Vacharadze, the head of Identoba, the Tbilisi-based gay rights advocacy group that organized the rally, said in an interview with The Times.

Vacharadze told The Times that Georgian Orthodox Church priests spearheaded the charge that breached a "heavy" police line. “The priests entered, the priests broke the fences and the police didn’t stop them, because the priests are above the law in Georgia,” he said in the report that noted that march opponents, mostly young men, also carried banners that read “No to mental genocide” and “No to gays.”

When police began herding marchers onto minibuses to get them out of the area, their attackers attempted to break the windows with metal objects, rocks and their fists, The Times says.

If the buses hadn't been nearby, "we would all have been corpses," the report quotes the group's lawyer, Nino Bolkvadze, as saying.

In a telephone interview from a safe house, Bolkvadze told The Times that riot police were unprepared, showing up without helmets or the "right equipment."

While Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili condemned the violence in a news release on Friday, advocacy groups like Amnesty International say authorities did not do enough and were "woefully unprepared" to protect marchers in light of advance announcements that counter-demonstrations were being planned, as well as past incidents of violence and "virulent" opposition.

“Ironically this shameful violence marred a day that is meant to mark solidarity in the face of homophobic violence around the world, and it shows that the Georgian authorities have a long way to go to promote tolerance and protect LGBTI people and their human rights,” John Dalhuisen, Europe and Central Asia program director at Amnesty International (AI), said in the aftermath of the most recent attack.

According to AI, Orthodox Church authorities accompanied, and seemed to encourage, those who attacked the marchers. A number of media reports last week also noted that the church's highest authority, Patriarch Ilia II, called on the authorities to ban the march, saying it would be "an insult" to Georgian tradition.

“It is becoming a dangerous trend in Georgia to condone and leave unpunished the acts of violence against religious and sexual minorities if they are perpetrated by the Orthodox religious clergy or their followers," AI's Dalhuisen said. "It is simply unacceptable for the authorities to continue to allow attacks in the name of religion or on the basis of anyone's real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity."

"By failing to take effective measures and hold these accountable to justice, the Georgian authorities are allowing the intolerance and impunity to grow and fester. They must improve their policing of peaceful demonstrations in future and ensure that this is not allowed to happen again,” Dalhuisen said.

BY NATASHA BARSOTTI — "The United Nations has one simple message to the millions of LGBT people around the world," secretary-general Ban Ki-moon says in a video, titled "The Riddle," that renews the call for equality.

You are not alone. LGBT rights are human rights.

The video, which includes a diverse cast of people who outline the breadth of the discrimination faced by queer people globally, also features the UN's high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, who reminds viewers that "every nation is obligated by international human rights law to protect all lesbians, gay, bisexual and transgender people from torture, discrimination and violence."

Since becoming UN head, Ban Ki-moon has repeatedly stepped up in support of queer people worldwide.

In a March 2012 message to the UN Human Rights Council on violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, the secretary-general noted that while he didn't grow up talking about these issues — "like many of my generation" — he said he learned to speak out because "lives are at stake." 

He referred to the UN human rights commissioner's report that revealed disturbing abuses in all regions, with a pattern of violence and discrimination against people just because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender; widespread bias at jobs, schools and hospitals; and "appalling" attacks, including sexual assault."

"This is a monumental tragedy for those affected," Ban Ki-moon said. 

Before that, in a Dec 8, 2011, statement Ban Ki-moon made to a UN panel called "Ending Bullying on the Basis of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity," he expressed concern over the bullying and violence that young people confront because of their presumed sexual orientation or gender identity. "But the roots go deeper," Ban Ki-moon added. "They lie in prevailing harmful attitudes in society at large, sometimes encouraged by divisive public figures and discriminatory laws and practices sanctioned by state authorities."

 

 

 

BY NATASHA BARSOTTI — The Moscow mayor's office has refused an application to stage gay pride later this month, citing a "negative attitude" toward it as the reason for the rejection, Pink News reports.

Security official Alexei Mayorov said Moscow Pride organizers were notified that the event was not given the go-ahead. “If the organizers still try to hold the event, a certain reaction will follow and the action will be thwarted," he warned.

Moscow Pride organizers have studiously defied repeated application rejections over the years and have staged guerilla-style protests on the city's streets.  

Last year, gay rights activist Nikolai Alexeyev told media he found a loophole in legislation that did not set limits on the timeframe for seeking approval for mass public events. Activists then bombarded Moscow city authorities with 102 applications to stage Pride parades over the next century. Those applications were turned down.

Alexeyev said there was no expectation that the applications would be approved. Rather, the idea was to generate a case that they could then appeal to a higher court in Russia and, if that failed, take the matter to the European Court of Human Rights. "We wanted to see the reaction so we could show the European Court of Human Rights that it's not just past events which are banned illegally but also the future events," Alexeyev told Gay Star News. "It was a way for us to show the absurdity of the system for gaining permission for public events." 

The Tverskoy district court had previously ruled that Moscow authorities' decision to prohibit gay public events from March 2012 to May 2112 was legal. 

 

Landing image: Lonely Planet

 

 

 

BY NATASHA BARSOTTI — By a vote of 37 to 30, Minnesota's Senate voted to legalize gay marriage, making it the 12th American state to do so, even as the bill's opponents hoped until the last moment that the measure would fail.

The Star Tribune notes that three Democrats – Senators LeRoy Stumpf, Dan Sparks and Lyle Koenen –  voted against the bill, while one Republican, Senator Branden Petersen, voted yes. 

According to the report, Republican Senator Dan Hall said he was "praying for a miracle" and hoped the Senate would reject the legislation. “Some people have said that they are concerned about being on the right side of history. I am more concerned about being on the right side of eternity,” the Tribune quotes Hall as saying. Other opponents carried signs saying, "Don't Erase Moms and Dads."

The measure's next stop is Governor Mark Dayton, who is scheduled to sign it into law tomorrow, May 14, on the steps of the state Capitol. The Senate vote follows a vote last week in the House where lawmakers voted 75 to 59 in favour of the measure. 

Minnesota voters opposed a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage during the last year's American election, even as many districts supported it.

Still, the number of people who gathered at the Capitol to back the bill outnumbered those who opposed it, according to the Tribune, and greeted supportive legislators with singing and drumming. 

“We have nothing to fear from love and commitment,” Democrat Senator John Hoffman said.

 

 

BY NATASHA BARSOTTI — A gay man whose naked and beaten body was found in the courtyard of an apartment building in the southern Russian city of Volgograd has been identified as Vladislav Tornovoi in a number of media reports.

An Agence France-Presse (AFP) report quotes a spokesperson for investigators as saying that the murdered man was "raped with beer bottles and had his skull smashed with a stone." In what is being described as a "rare occurrence," the attack has been labelled a hate crime. A Moscow Times report also quotes gay rights activist Nikolai Alexeyev as saying that homophobic attacks are common in Russia but are not deemed hate crimes under domestic law. The report notes that hate crimes, motivated by racial, religious or ethnic bias, "carry especially harsh punishments."

Two men, aged 22 and 27, have been detained in connection with the attack. 

AFP says regional investigator Andrei Gapchenko told a Moscow radio station that two men beat the 23-year-old man after he told them he was gay.

The attack follows passage of legislation banning so-called propaganda of homosexuality among minors in about 10 cities and regions across Russia and as a federal anti-gay gag bill, which has already passed first reading in the State Duma, is due to undergo a second reading. The passage of such legislation has been condemned internationally.

"Political figures have provoked anti-gay sentiment by portraying the gay community as a bunch of freaks," Alexeyev told Moscow Times. "They are accomplices in the killing," he alleges.

In an April 8 press conference in Amsterdam, Russian President Vladimir Putin said there is "no infringement on the rights of sexual minorities" in the Russian Federation, adding that "these people, like everyone else, enjoy all the same rights and freedoms as everyone else."

Organizers of Moscow Pride are considering dedicating the event to Tornovoi, International Business Times says.

 

Related:

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Nikolai Alexeyev: Russia's push to criminalize gays could backfire

Alexeyev convicted under St Petersburg's anti-gay law

Eight arrested in St Petersburg for ignoring Pride ban