Police thwart gay pride rally in Moscow
Moscow police Sunday thwarted an attempt to hold a small gay pride rally in the Russian capital, arresting both homosexual activists and anti-gay conservatives who showed up, an AFP correspondent said. The rally outside Moscow town hall, dubbed by activists as the Seventh Moscow Gay Pride, had not been sanctioned by the authorities and was rapidly broken up by police who dragged participants into waiting vans. Police claimed to have acted even-handedly to prevent clashes between the gay activists and their homophobic opponents who frequently make appearances at gay rights events in Russia. "Around 40 people from both sides were arrested for various violations of the law," a Moscow police spokesman said in a statement carried on Russian news agencies. Among those arrested was Nikolai Alexeyev, Russia's most prominent gay rights activist. "It is a pity that Russia has finally turned into a totalitarian state. I have been arrested for opening my mouth in front of journalists," Alexeyev wrote on Twitter. Gays in Russia have been incensed by a new law against "homosexual propaganda" adopted in March by Russia's second city Saint Petersburg that they say is hugely discriminatory. The law -- which promises fines for anyone found to have spread gay propaganda among minors -- equates homosexuality with paedophilia and is worded so vaguely it could be used against any gay action. Homosexuality was decriminalised in Russia in 1993 but officials often make homophobic statements, most notoriously ex-Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov, who consistently refused to sanction gay pride events, which he called "satanic."
