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Several LGBTI rights protesters arrested in St Petersburg
Police in St Petersburg arrested several LGBTI activists on Sunday (2 August) for staging unsanctioned protests on a Russian military holiday.
The demonstrators were protesting the city government’s repeated refusal to allow a Pride parade.
Yury Gavrikov, the leader of an LGBTI group, did not even make it to his planned one-man picket outside the Hermitage Museum in Palace Square.
Gavrikov was detained as he left his home. He denies the charge leveled against him – cursing in public – and is being held at a police station while he awaits a court hearing.
Several demonstrators that did make it to the square were confronted by paratroopers celebrating Airborne Troops Day, who tore up their banners and rainbow flags.
They were quickly taken away by police.
‘What they do here is not right, it’s terrible,’ veteran Alexander Fadeyev, told the Associated Press.
‘We’re in Russia and not in America. Let them do what they want in America, but not in Russia.’
But some online commenters noted with irony that the homoerotic displays of affection between the soldiers paratroopers ‘wouldn’t look out of place at any Gay Pride rally.’
Paratroopers Day in #Russia. Although wouldn’t look out of place at any Gay Pride rally #photography pic.twitter.com/T5Pxp1VQtv
— Rob The Bruce (@robster38) August 3, 2013
Freedom of assembly is granted by the Russian Constitution but the country’s notorious gay ‘propaganda’ law is often used to ban or break up Pride parades and LGBTI rights protests.
Watch video footage of the protest below:
The post Several LGBTI rights protesters arrested in St Petersburg appeared first on Gay Star News.
Darren Wee
www.gaystarnews.com/article/several-lgbti-rights-protesters-arrested-in-st-petersburg/
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