Lithuanian pride rally banned, canceled
The centerpiece of the first-ever gay pride celebrations in Vilnius, Lithuania, was canceled May 23 after city officials refused to authorize it.
Organizers had planned to display a 30-meter rainbow flag in Savivaldybes Square, accompanied by the European Union's traveling 'anti-discrimination truck.'
But Mayor Juozas Imbrasas banned the truck from entering the city, and the City Council refused to issue a permit for the rally, saying it was likely to provoke anti-gay riots.
'We will not do the rainbow flag display in the central square, since we haven't got a permit and we have to respect the decision,' Virginija Prasmickaite of the Lithuanian Gay League said in an e-mail. 'Also, due to security reasons, we will encourage everyone not to make any [ public ] actions. The city is full of anti-gay leaflets calling upon [ people ] to demonstrate against gay propaganda.'
The blocking of the EU's anti-discrimination truck, which has been roaming 19 nations for four years, was a first for the vehicle.
'This is an appalling act of disrespect ... toward the entire European Union and its basic principles,' said Patricia Prendiville, head of the European branch of the International Lesbian and Gay Association.
Sophie in 't Veld, vice president of the European Parliament's Intergroup on Gay and Lesbian Rights, called on the European Commission to take decisive action.
'The commission does not hesitate to charge in with the cavalry to fight cartels or anti-competitive practices,' she said. 'In the 'European Year of Equal Opportunities,' the commission must demonstrate that it enforces all European laws, not just the economic ones. Banning a peaceful demonstration [ has been ] ruled illegal by the European Court of Human Rights.'
Mayor Imbrasas also prohibited gay pride ads from appearing on the city's public-transportation vehicles.
The large ads, designed to fill the side or back of a city trolley bus, read: 'A lesbian can work at school,' 'A gay man can serve in the police force' and 'Homosexual employees have a right to be open and safe.'
Imbrasas declared, 'With priority for the traditional family and seeking to promote family values, we disapprove the public display of homosexualists' ideas in the city of Vilnius.'
The ads—produced and placed with around $8,000 in EU and Lithuanian government funding—also never saw the light of day in the city of Kaunas.
After the ads were installed on trolley buses there, drivers refused to leave the trolley barn, saying they feared they would be mocked by friends and that the vehicles would be vandalized.
Other pride events in Vilnius went ahead as planned, organizers said. They included a cultural exhibition, film screenings, a seminar and a dance party.
Warsaw pride a success
Warsaw's gay pride parade went relatively smoothly this year as a record 20,000 people marched through downtown under heavy police protection May 19.
A few dozen members of a far-right youth group protested the parade and five of them were arrested, police said. In some previous years, the parade has been banned by city officials and violently attacked by anti-gay protesters.
Activists from around the continent joined the march, including Sweden's European Affairs Minister Cecilia Malmström, German MPs Claudia Roth and Volker Beck, and Madrid City Councilor Pedro Zerolo.
The parade took place 16 days after the European Court of Human Rights ruled unanimously that then-Mayor Lech Kaczynski violated the European Convention on Human Rights when he banned the 2005 march. Kaczynski, who is now Poland's president, had said he opposed 'propagating gay orientation.'
Current Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, who defeated Kaczynski's right-wing Law and Justice party in the November 2006 mayoral election, is more gay-friendly.
One day after the parade, conservative groups staged a march of their own in support of families and in opposition to abortion and gay rights.
One of the 800 marchers, Deputy Prime Minister Roman Giertych, told reporters: 'One has to oppose what happened here yesterday. Revolting pederasts came here from many countries and tried to impose their propaganda on us.'
More 'homosexual conduct' arrests in Iran
Some of 87 people arrested in a May 10 raid on a private party in Esfahán, Iran, are to be charged with the crime of 'homosexual conduct' ( hamjensgarai ) , Human Rights Watch reported May 16.
Witnesses said police and Basiji militia led the detainees into the street, stripped many to the waist and beat them until their backs and faces were bloody. Several suffered broken bones.
There were four women among the arrestees and eight people who were accused of wearing clothes of the opposite sex.
The women and some of the other detainees have been released but an unknown number remain jailed facing the homosexuality charges as well as charges of consuming alcohol, which is illegal.
Family members have not been allowed to see the prisoners and they have been denied lawyers, HRW said.
'When the authorities break doors and bones in the name of morality, the rule of law is reduced to a mockery,' said HRW's Middle East division deputy director, Joe Stork.
The Toronto-based Iranian Queer Organization ( IRQO ) said the party was a birthday celebration for a man named Farhad, and that Farhad's parents were among the detainees.
IRQO said two people had jumped from second-floor windows in an attempt to escape the raiding officers 'and were in bad condition.'
An IRQO dispatch dated May 13 said the jailed individuals are 'gay men' who are 'under severe torture and in bad condition in the jail. ... Their lives are in danger.'
But IRQO later amended its statement, advising reporters not to call the raid a 'gay crackdown' until actual charges are filed.
Gay Parti Québécois leader resigns
The openly gay leader of Quebec's separatist Parti Québécois, André Boisclair, resigned May 8. The party suffered heavy losses in March's provincial election.
Struggling not to cry, Boisclair, 41, told reporters, 'My leadership has been questioned so intensely that I cannot begin the essential process of reflection that the party needs.'
Elected in November 2005 by a wide margin, Boisclair had hoped to hold 'a referendum on the sovereignty of Quebec as rapidly as possible' if his party had beat the Liberals in the recent election.
'Let us all work together to achieve the country of Quebec,' he said at the time.
In 1995, Quebec voters came within 1.2 percentage points of choosing to separate from Canada. The March election, however, saw gains by the right-wing party Action Démocratique du Québec, which favors greater autonomy for the province but not independence from Canada.
—Assistance: Bill Kelley
