And the bands played on

For the fourth time in as many years, Moscow Pride has been violently suppressed by Russian security forces who stood by while participants were bashed by skinheads and Orthodox Christian thugs.

The official reason for the ban on this year’s march was that police could not guarantee the safety of participants -” yet Moscow’s mayor Yuri Luzhkov has continually labelled the gay rights movement satanic and has failed to issue permits for a single gay protest in his city in the thirteen years of his administration. In comparison he approved two anti-gay counter-protests in the last week.

Moscow’s police chief showed himself to be equally unimpartial, telling the Interfax news service, It’s unacceptable. Gay pride parades shouldn’t be allowed.
His concluding remark held a chilling warning for Pride participants that came true on Saturday: Such bravehearts will be torn to shreds.
Within minutes of protesters assembling in Pushkin Park, next to Moscow’s State University, riot police from the dreaded OMON paramilitary unit began the mass arrests.

Anyone they could identify as gay was dragged down the pavement and thrown into waiting buses and cars. When a second wave of activists identified themselves and began speaking to journalists, not even rolling TV cameras stopped police, with many dragged away mid-interview. The 31 arrested included foreign nationals from Finland, Belarus and the USA, and Australian-born British activist Peter Tatchell, who was bashed by thugs at another march in 2007.
The Finns had been talking to Estonian journalists when a homophobic mob descended on them, throwing kicks and punches, before police intervened to arrest them -” but not their attackers. Activists were attacked elsewhere in the park while police watched.
Back at the police station, those arrested were denied access to their lawyer for two hours, then a judge banned supporters from entering the courthouse to watch as their charges were read out.
Russia’s antipathy to the rights of its sexual minorities is ironic considering how much of its cultural fame was build on the backs of gay men -” Tchaikovsky, Nijinsky and Nureyev were all gay, as were Battleship Potemkin director Sergei Eisenstein and the writer Nikolai Gogol.

Organisers hoped that holding the march just hours before the Eurovision finals would focus world attention on their plight, and this mostly succeeded.

Yet how many more years do Russian GLBTs have to be bashed on television before serious diplomatic pressure is applied?