Another Pride turns violent

More than 500 Romanian activists faced a jeering, violent crowd of protesters as they took part in the Bucharest Gay Parade on Saturday.

Foreign protesters and supporters joined the activists and Romanian princess Briana Caradja, carrying a 200-metre-long rainbow flag, according to the Bucharest Daily News.

Their shouted slogans, including homophobia is the worst disease, were met with chants of we are not homosexuals, we are real men from the hundreds of anti-gay protesters lining the parade route.

Protesters in apartment buildings threw eggs and stones at the marchers and about 60 people attempted to get past police to attack participants.

The Daily News reported six participants were attacked and beaten while heading home from the parade.

The Romanian Orthodox Church Bishop Ciprian Campineanu condemned the parade as an attack against the morality of public life in a statement made earlier in the week.

Although frowned upon by the church and the majority of its followers, homosexuality has been legal in Romania since 2001.

Reuters reported riot police had arrested 51 people.

The violence came two weeks after 120 activists and anti-gay protesters were arrested at an illegal gay rights march in Moscow. According to news reports, the protesters kicked and punched gay activists as they attempted to lay flowers at Moscow’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Meantime, the Warsaw Gay Pride Parade will go ahead as planned on Saturday 10 June. Current president Lech Kaczynski banned the previous two parades when he was Warsaw’s mayor, but the nation’s Constitutional Court ruled earlier this year the rallies should be allowed.

The League of Polish Families also announced plans to hold a demonstration on the day. TheGuardian reported members of the League’s Youth Wing were notorious for carrying Nazi symbolism during rallies.