by Rex Wockner
Moscow Pride activists went to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, Feb. 13 to plead for emergency consideration of their languishing cases stemming from Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov's repeated bans of gay pride events over the past three years.
The group also joined with around 50 local activists to stage a public protest in which one banner read, "Need there be deaths at Moscow gay pride for the European Court to react?"
When gays have staged unauthorized pride events in Moscow, in spite of Luzhkov's bans, they have been beaten by anti-gay protesters and police.
During a week of lobbying, the Moscow delegation also held meetings with representatives of the Council of Europe (CoE, which oversees the court), members of the European Parliament, and human rights officials from the European Commission.
"Meetings at the CoE were tough," said Moscow Pride founder Nikolai Alekseev. "It was in fact the unpleasant surprise of all this trip. At the CoE, we were told, basically, to put less pressure, that we have to wait, that in several years things will change, that they work 'hard' to make it evolve."
"There is a clear gap between Strasbourg and what people suffer in the whole of Europe," he said. "By staying global, this organization does not act locally. We all got the impression that the CoE is completely powerless in front of Russia."
The activists also staged a demonstration at UN headquarters in Geneva and met with officials from the UN Human Rights Commission.
"One of the conclusions we made after our meeting with this institution is that there is a gap between what we, as activists, face in our countries and what they usually know," said Nikolai Baev, a member of the Russian delegation.
Luzhkov has called gay pride parades "satanic" and "weapons of mass destruction," and said he will never allow them in Moscow.
