Saturday 19 September 2009

Gay Serbia - "in our city infidels and Satanists will not pass"


Fine words from a country and the city of Belgrade which should feel shame rather than triumph. Today organisers of a Gay Pride in Serbia agreed to call off the demonstration after renewed threats of violence. Great news form a country which one wold have deemed  "democratic"? This all seems par for the course when one recalls even the first gay pride march in 2001 which ended in violence.
The organisers were asked to move the march from the center of Belgrade to a "field" outside the city and faced with the choice of this humiliation or calling off the march they made the wisest choice under the circumstances and called off the demonstration.
Is seems somewhat overambitious that Serbia a country where both nationalists and religious leaders are for sexual discrimation, that they should have ambitions to become a member of the European Union. Equally the case for a country where many applauded freed war crimes perpetators at The Hague. I think that Serbia has a little further to go in human rights issues before even thinking about joining a European Union where at least the fundamental rights of citizens are secured by law.
The choice to call off the march has propeled the country again to world headlines and not for any reasons to be proud of. Courage to the gay acivists!  As they said The Republic of Serbia has capitulated. We have not.

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