Police and fascists attack Moscow Pride

EuroPride

Police and fascists attack Moscow Pride

THE LESBIAN, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community will be
marching in London on 1 July at EuroPride. Many important legal reforms
have been made, such as civil partnerships, which have improved the
lives of LGBT people. These were put in place due to many years of
campaigning for LGBT rights.


Socialist Party / International Socialist Resistance post-Pride
meeting

Saturday 1 July, 3.45pm

The Clarence pub, Whitehall (Off Trafalgar Square)


Welcome though these reforms are, this struggle is not over. There
have been laws against racial and sex discrimination for many years but
these laws have not removed racism and sexism from society. The recent
conviction of two men for the homophobic murder of Jody Dobrowski on
Clapham Common shows that the LGBT community should never be complacent.

Rights won need to be defended and extended. This should be the theme
of Pride, and should link up with international struggles. In Eastern
Europe gay pride events have been attacked by reactionaries and the
state. Privatising, big business politicians have used homophobia to
bolster their positions.

IGOR YASIN, a gay socialist and member of the Socialist Party’s
Russian sister organisation in the Committee for a Workers’
International (CWI), Socialist Resistance, was involved in events on 27
May in Moscow, and reports:

THE MOSCOW city authorities banned the Pride march planned for 27 May
and the courts upheld this ban. A conference of Russian and foreign LGBT
activists in Moscow on the eve of the planned march had a lot of
discussion on tactics. The main dispute was whether the gay pride march
should go ahead.

The relatively small number of LGBT activists from Russia were
indecisive and many were obviously scared. Several put forward the idea
that instead of marching under the slogan "Homophobia is just part of
xenophobia" they should hand in a petition to the Moscow authorities.

A CWI member, Alexei Kozlov, attempted to convince the conference to
participate in a picket of the Mayor’s Office with slogans against
discrimination and in defence of the right to organise and demonstrate,
as the best way of speaking out against discrimination against sexual
minorities.

But many activists were unenthusiastic, saying we did not need
"radical actions or conflicts with the authorities". Some even said that
we need to "respect the authority’s decision".

I commented that, even according to current laws, there was no legal
basis for banning the gay pride event, so gay activists should not give
up before the fight had even started – we need to express our position
and speak against discrimination and in defence of our rights.

Come the day of the picket we were due to kick off at 3pm opposite
the Mayor’s office. Although formally it was a picket in defence of
democratic rights, it turned into an action in defence of minority
rights, in solidarity with the discriminated against LBGT community.

Kremlin walls

AT MIDDAY on 27 May, a press conference announced that some gay
activists would lay flowers at the tomb of the unknown soldier by the
Kremlin walls and then take part in the picket outside the mayor’s
office. Our immediate reaction was that this was a mistake. Different
people would be in different areas and make it easy for the cops to lift
people individually. And this is what happened.

Some were arrested "for attempting to lay flowers" in the
Alexandorskii garden (by the Kremlin) where crowds of screaming
"patriots" and fascists had gathered. Others were lifted on their way to
the Mayor’s office.

Before the planned picket, the street began to fill up with
sombre-looking youth, hiding from the rain in archways. Alongside them,
the cops stood blocking the path to the square outside the Mayor’s
office. Slowly activists began drifting up, with them journalists and
the inevitable representatives of the organs of repression.

Our group, which included the main organisers and some foreign gay
activists turned up five minutes before the picket was due to start.
Aleksei and Dima, the official organisers, were called over by the
police to "discuss the details," and we were left to unfold our banner.
I naively thought I’d be able to distribute the 500 anti-fascist
leaflets in my bag.

But nothing doing! As the organisers got to where the police had
asked them to go, they were arrested. The rest of us were surrounded by
a crowd. Then a deputy from deputy speaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s party
(Zhirinovsky recently called for the death penalty for homosexuality)
climbed a statue standing over a few gay activists and started a
homophobic, nationalistic speech.

Fascists

The crowd of fascist youth started chanting "death to queers" and
"send the queers to concentration camps". A few of us shouted "fascism
will not pass." One of these idiots shouted back at me "Don’t be stupid
– fascism was defeated in 1945!"

Then the cops laid in, arresting more organisers and participants in
the picket whilst the fascists cheered them on with loud cries of "Long
live Russia!" The actions of the far right and the police seem to have
been coordinated. Otherwise it is hard to explain how confident the
fascists felt in the centre of Moscow on that day.

Police attitude

WE SPENT the next few hours to and fro from the police station where
people were held to the internet cafŽ. We could spot groups of young
fascists up alleys, in archways, in the metro entrance. Obviously we
don’t look too gay as they ignored us.

But another comrade who was at the police station said that inside it
was full of skinheads and the like helping the police. In another
station 17 people were held including Alexei, Dima and well known
lesbian activist Evgenii Debryanskaya. People were in shock but all did
what they could. They were released after about four hours.

So although a march took place it was not gay pride but a march of
fascists and skinheads. The gay community has made an effort to organise
openly, but the mass media practically ignored them.

Only small circulation opposition papers and the reactionary press
commented on the issue. Not a single mainstream political party has
spoken out against discrimination. Even the so-called "democratic" (ie
neo-liberal) parties which many LBGT activists support, have chosen not
to notice the events just as they ignored the attacks on gay clubs by
fascist groups the week before.

Even some ‘lefts’ think that fascism was defeated once and for all by
the "Soviet people" in 1945. Others think the issue irrelevant. But
after these events some of them have had to start rethinking their
position.

There is no longer a neutral position on this question. Some young
communists boasted on their website of how they formed a common front
with the fascists against gays. But others have been forced by these
events to speak out more openly against nationalism and in defence of
gay rights.

27 May was the first "coming out" of Russia’s LBGT community in
defence of its rights. But it’s just a beginning. Many gays and lesbians
still have many illusions, few have a clear idea of how they can be
emancipated.

Our task as socialists is to show that only by fighting capitalism
and its state machine, together with all the poisonous prejudices that
come out of capitalism and by building a new society based on freedom
and equality – a socialist society – can these questions be tackled once
and for all.


See
also: Fight back against homophobic bullying