The Independent reports:
Serbian riot police fought running battles yesterday with far-right extremists who hurled petrol bombs and stones in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent a Gay Pride march from taking place through the centre of the capital, Belgrade.
Thousands of police sealed the streets to allow the march of 1,000 people to go ahead. Police clashed repeatedly with the protesters, who chanted "death to homosexuals" and set fire to parts of the ruling Democratic Party's headquarters.
The clashes failed to interrupt the parade – the first since 2001, when right-wing extremists broke up a similar march. Extremists had forced the cancellation of last year's planned Gay Pride parade.
Most of the rioters were young football fans whose groups have been infiltrated by neo-Nazi and other extremist organisations. The march was seen as a major test for Serbia's government, which has launched pro-Western reforms and pledged to protect human rights as part of its bid to join the EU.
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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
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.
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.
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! :-)
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.
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