Court condemns Moscow gay pride bans

October 22, 2010|Associated Press

STRASBOURG, France — The European Court of Human Rights condemned Russia yesterday for letting Moscow ban gay pride marches simply because the city’s mayor — who famously compared gays to the devil — and other officials disapproved of them.

The binding ruling means that Russia must ensure gay parades are freely held in its cities and requires the country to pay organizers of gay pride events $41,300 for damages and court costs stemming from bans from 2006 to 2008.

The court is an arm of the Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog.

The case was launched by Nikolay Alekseyev, an organizer of several Moscow marches, to highlight discrimination. Moscow’s mayor at the time, Yuri Luzhkov, ensured that gay pride parades, which had not received official permission, were brutally quashed by police.

The European Court of Human Rights said those marches were officially banned “to protect public order, health, morals, and the rights and freedoms of others, as well as to prevent riots,’’ but that the real reason was a dislike of gays and lesbians.

Also yesterday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s chief of staff, Sergei Sobyanin, was named mayor of Moscow.

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