Moscow police violently break up gay pride rally
MOSCOW - Riot police violently broke up several gay rights demonstrations in Moscow on Saturday, hauling away scores of protesters hours before the Russian capital hosted a major international pop music competition.
City officials had warned they would not tolerate marches or rallies supporting the rights of gays and lesbians. Activists had targeted Moscow, which was holding the finals of the Eurovision song contest on Saturday, to press their claims that Russia officially sanctions homophobia.
Police seized gay rights protesters as well as some members of religious and nationalist groups that staged counter-demonstrations. They also took away gay rights activists for simply talking to reporters, and ripped the bra and shirt off one female protester.
Moscow police spokesman Anatoly Listovetsky said 40 people were detained, although media reports said up to 80 had been seized.
Among those detained were British activist Peter Tatchell and American activist Andy Thayer of Chicago, co-founder of the Gay Liberation Network.
Tatchell and most of the others were detained during a hastily organized protest near Moscow State University in southwest Moscow, where about 30 protesters shouted "Homophobia is a disgrace of this country!" and "We are demanding equal rights!"
"This shows the Russian people are not free!" Tatchell yelled as he was being dragged to a police car. He was released a short time later.
"The arrests were done in a very violent, aggressive manner," Tatchell told The Associated Press after his release. "We believe the reaction of the Moscow police was totally unjustified."
Tatchell said Russian gay rights leaders had appealed to Eurovision contestants to denounce the police crackdown from the stage at tonight's competition. The live contest, which pits singers from different nations against each other, has drawn up to 100 million television viewers previously and is Europe's most prestigious pop song competition.
"Today's arrests go against the principles of Eurovision, which are about peace, harmony, cooperation and unity between all the peoples in Europe," he said. "Gay people are part of Europe, they are part of Russia - their rights and freedoms are as important as everyone else's."
Thayer was hustled off by police as he spoke with reporters. He said he had come to help "fight for the soul of Russian democracy."
"If ... the right to assemble is taken away from lesbian and gay people here in Russia, then other Russians have to fear for their own freedom," Thayer said seconds before police burst through a ring of journalists to take him away.
Police ripped the shirt and bra off one female protester, who identified herself as Ksenia Prilebskaya, and roughly pushed her into a police bus. Her glasses fell and she shrieked in apparent pain.
Eduard Murdin, 40, a human rights activist from the Russian city of Ufa, was flanked by two officers who pinned his arms behind him and marched him, head bent over, to a waiting bus.
"All we wanted was a legal protest," he said as he was led away. "But we were blocked. What else could we do?"
City authorities had barred Saturday's rally, saying it was morally wrong.
"(Gay pride events) not only destroy moral foundations of our society, but also purposefully provoke disturbances that will threaten the lives and safety of Moscow residents and guests," City Hall spokesman Sergei Tsoi was quoted by the ITAR-Tass news agency as saying Saturday.
At one rally a short walk from the Kremlin, about 50 demonstrators from nationalist and Orthodox Christian organizations denounced homosexuality. One man was detained when he alleged officials in the Kremlin were gay.
A half-dozen anti-gay rights demonstrators were also seized by police during a demonstration in Moscow's central Pushkin Square.
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Associated Press writer Peter Leonard contributed to this report.