Fridae

horrible, Unfortunate...growing pains after decades of authoritarian rule, one can't help wonder if they could find better strategies than one off street parades that attract violence and cause casualities that could be avoided for the police having to defend them

The serbian boys are just closet gays who hate themselves for being gay...embrace yourselves fellas let the inner gay come out!

Erm...it's East Europe. Enuf said.

Fantastic! A slavic government siding with a gay pride is unusual.

#4- You're absoluttely right! ;-)

Zdravo!

Why is it always that bigoted comments are made by the ones who aren't brave enough to post their own picture?

i am ashamed to share the same continent with these right-wing idiots... maybe we can persuade them to migrate to uganda because they certainly don't belong in europe

and i add my bravo to the serbian gay community and to the belgrade mayor for standing up to the bigots... at last the serbian government now has the evidence and the motivation to crack down on these far-right extremists... they have been unchallenged for far too long

Serb neo-nazis? Some people are really clueless.
Surely, they should start off by wiping out their own heinous selves. Unless I'm much mistaken, at some point in European history, ethnic Serbs qualified as subhuman.
Fools. If the original nazis had it their way, you wouldn't be here today to hate on others.

Poor police officer in the last picture looks like he's in a lot of pain...Hope that didn't cost him an eye.

#&: And why is it that my comments are always intepreted as 'bigoted' when i'm tryng to tell the truth- instead of sugar-coating (trust me, I'm very tempted to do this, on many occasions)?

If you are going to be a serious, grown up person and pass on judgement by posting snyde comments on east European society and many cultures that are located in that part of the world, in front of educated and literate audience, you simply have to start first by checking out the facts.
Last time I checked homosexuality is not only decriminilized but there are Same-sex Civil unions and registered partnerships laws in east European countries such as Czech Republic, Slovenia etc. and Same-sex Unregistered co-habitation laws in countries such as Croatia.
The real issue here is not about gay parade, it’s about violence, intolerance and hate, coming from a small group of people that doesn’t represent Serbia or eastern Europe.
And as person who has lived in eastern Europe for many years and has very good knowledge of people and cultures of that area, as oposed to someone who makes one dimensional comment “Erm...it's East Europe. Enuf said”, I think puts me much more near the position of being objectively correct.
Bear in mind that every time you express bigotry towards someone else, you are in return making a stick for your own back. Which raises the question of who you are, where you come from and why do you say the things you say? Because not only there is currently no recognition of same-sex unions in Singapore, but Singapore Penal Code criminalizes homosexual sex between men, even if consensual.
Section 377A of the Singapore penal code ("Outrages on decency") states that: Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or abets the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 2 years.
So bravo, Bains, you really have proved my point by sneering at eastern Europe and their level of how far ahead they’ve come gay rights wise, as oposed to the part of the world you come from.

My dad is from Serbia & my mom from Macedonia. i'm 100% Balkan. i'm tired of ppl referring to Serbia as "Eastern European" cuz its not. its in the Balkans, not next to Belarus lol we have a very traditional 'macho' culture. its tough for people to deal with the fact that there are thousands of gay Balkan people. i mean 10 years ago there wasn't even a gay parade or march in the Balkans. they've come a long way. and still have a long way to go. however just because sum drunken or bad tempered fools decide to pick a fight with a police officer doesn't mean the entire GLBTI community in Serbia is ungrateful for the police's support & protection in they're annual Pride March. You gotta understand the people, the history, the culture & religion of a particular country in order to understand whats going on fully. See the country through the peoples eyes. i can only hope that 1 day Balkan people will @ least Accept they're own GLBTI community. This should be about peace, acceptance & understanding. not about pointing the finger of blame onto anyone in particular... remember the bigger picture hear....

#11: LOL...where were you when I was thrashing 377A & the Singapore System??? I've already made it very clear that I'm NOT a fan of Singapore, even though I live here. And on hindsight...maybe I really should learn to lie...sorry, talk smoothly, like a good, "educated" politician...you know, wear a mask, smile, then very brightly & cheerily proclaim "Wow i heart Serbia...everyone's soooooooo cute!! He he!!!" Hmm...nice idea...I'd like to try that next time. So much for freedom of speech...esp. when I've heard far worse things abt what (some) Western expats here say abt Asians.

As for the 'Eastern Europe' comment, yes it was a slip of the tongue...and to poster #12- I'm esp. sorry if I've offended you in any way. As you've mentioned, a very traditional 'macho' culture is prevalent ...and some Serbian expats I've encountered here kind of reinforced that. Bt as you said, 'they've come a long way...and still have a long way to go'....society (anywhere) is fluid and not static, therefore things can & do evolve with the times.
Who knows, Belgrade might even outshine Paris or Amsterdam as the Gay Capital of Europe! :-)

No. 13 - I always looked upon London as the Gay Capital of Europe. More bars, more clubs and more gays than any other city in Europe!

Well, it turns out that ousted and marginalised Milosevic's cronies were trying to revenge for being deprieved of the access to cookies/goodies by organising imoverished youths to attack the police using as a pretext LGBT Parade. It's not difficult to rally 15-17 year olds (27% of the apprehended by the police were underage) aroundhomophobia; homophobia in that age group is blatant in many countries that are currently more liberal (even though historically they were much more homophopbic than the Balkans, e.g. Germany which wiped out 60% of its gays mere 70 years ago, or Spain and Holland which were burning gays on stake 300 years ago).

Anyway, Serbia _is_ rather homophobic overall, but the attack on the parade was due to impoverished former middle class barely surviving today, due to the wars in ex-Yugoslavia, UN sanctions for 6 years unde r Milosevic and after a painful meagre improvement in 2000-2003, a slow degradation of economy with its "privatisation" (sale out to mafia, mostly, as the mafia was the only party to have money to buy), further exacerbated with the Global Economic Crisis since 2-3 years ago.

Compare what is going on in France last couple of days. When you have little to lose, people, especially the young need very little prodding to clash with the police.