by Rex Wockner
International News Briefs
Three members of GayBelarus were fined a total of about $467 Dec. 23 for picketing the Iranian Embassy in Minsk to protest Iran's treatment of gay people.
Sergey Androsenko was fined $307 for organizing an unauthorized protest and Sergey Praded was fined $123 for taking part in it. A third participant was fined $37.
An embassy employee testified that among the people handed protest material was the Iranian ambassador himself.
Androsenko said his fine was unusually harsh for nations of the former Soviet Union and equals one month's worth of his salary.
"I am going to appeal for review … to the U.N. Human Rights Committee," he said. "It will reveal the roughness of Belarusian legislation to issues of organizing such actions and restrictions on expressing one's own thought."
"The world can't hear the voice of Iranian gays, who are being executed," he added. "We, activists of LGBT movement, have to become this voice."
