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Reports of a violent police crackdown on marchers in Saturday’s Slavic Pride in Belarus are continuing to emerge following the release of seven marchers arrested during the event.

A group of between twenty and forty people took part in the demonstration, joined by a number of journalists, defying the Minsk city authorities who had banned the march. Officials cited a law prohibiting public events from taking place within 200 meters of subway stations as their reason for cancelling the event. Pride organisers countered that their planned route is regularly used for other parades.

Bloggers and news agencies report that Saturday’s march lasted only ten minutes before several van loads of anti-riot police arrived to break up the parade, in which marchers were wielding a twelve-meter long rainbow flag. Reports vary, but at least twelve Pride marchers and eighteen anti-gay counter-demonstrators were detained.

Speaking to Reuters, Russian activist Nikolai Alekseev said, “The police reaction was completely disproportionate to the threat which they thought the protesters posed.” Sergey Yenin, an organiser of the event, was released on Monday after spending two days in police custody. He has posted a report of his experiences online, stating: “I don’t appear to have any freedom of speech in my country, but I have the freedom on the internet”.

Louis-Georges Tin, president of International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO), said “We are outraged to see so much police violence against a peaceful event and we can only admire the courage of these forty heroes who took part despite knowing the risks.”

Last year’s Slavic Pride event was held in Moscow, where police violently arrested around twenty demonstrators, including veteran gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell.

Posted in: Campaigns & Politics |