30 May 2012 | Russia
Holding rallies and demonstrations is a right, specified in article 31 of the Russian constitution and one which is regularly abused by Russian authorities.
Since 31 July 2009 the opposition has held protests in support of peaceful assembly on the 31 day of each month that has 31 days. Three years of such protests have brought no luck to the group which suffers from the violation of article 31 most — the Russian gay community. For the seventh time Moscow authorities have blocked their attempts to hold a gay-pride parade. Police arrested forty people who came out to the unsanctioned demonstration: both LGBT activists and radical nationalists, who tried to confront them.
Last year the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia’s gay-pride ban was illegal, but the country’s authorities don’t seem to have considered the court’s decision. As Pride organiser and gay rights advocate Nikolay Alekseev told Index on Censorship, “Russian authorities cannot abandon ECHR’s decision forever, at least because of the fact that the Russian gay community has 15 more appeals waiting to be won there”. According to Alekseev’s plan, at some point the court will confirm the systematic violation of gay rights in Russia, and the issue will be brought up by the European Committee of Ministers, which is likely to influence Russian policy on gay community.
“We were ready to hold our demonstration any place in Moscow this time, but the authorities said that in any place we would violate the standards of morality,” said Alekseev, adding that “Russian authorities ignore the gay community and European Convention on Human Rights because they go unpunished and don’t receive tough ultimatums on the issue from their European counterparts”.
In March “United Russia” deputies in Saint-Petersburg successfully passed a scandalous law “against promotion of homosexuality”, which forbids LGBT activities and bans any information about LGBT promotion among minors. This means any LGBT activist can be fined up to 500 thousand roubles (10,782 GBP).
That is why gay rights activists have to take precautions and self-censor, says Gulnara Sultanova, director of “Side by Side”, a Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival, which has been held every autumn in Saint-Petersburg since 2008. The festival’s core idea is fighting discrimination and supporting congenial relationship between LGBT representatives and heterosexuals. Sultanova told Index this year her colleagues have to set an age limit to avoid fines, despite the fact some “films about gender identity and equal rights are useful to teenagers”.
Homosexuality was only decriminalised in Russia in 1993. Before that, gay men were put in prisons and lesbians were sent to mental hospitals. Most of the active part of Russian society were raised in that time, when it was inappropriate to even discuss LGBT issues. This, according to Sultanova, resulted in a vicious circle, where “a lot of gays and lesbians are afraid to come out and participate in civil protests under rainbow flags, and many people consider gay groups too closed to express solidarity towards them”. It will take years to break this circle, but the tendency, according to Sultanova, is positive.
Her optimism is shared by LGBT activist and Novaya Gazeta journalist Elena Kostuchenko. Last year during an unsanctioned gay pride march in Moscow she was beaten by ultranationalist youth group activist. This year, she says, protests against Vladimir Putin united polar groups: nationalists, antinationalts and LGBT activists. Together they had to run from the police, spend time in detention centres for wearing white ribbons (symbol of protest) and demand new fair elections.
“Since December people have realised that lawlessnessness concerns everyone, and if the state systematically violates the rights of one group (LGBT, for instance), it could any time violate the rights of any other, which is exactly what happens now,” Kostuchenko concludes.
4 May 2012 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa
Violent clashes between protesters staging a sit-in outside the Defence Ministry Headquarters in Cairo’s Abbasseya district and unknown assailants killed at least 20 people on Wednesday and left scores of others injured.
The violence began in the early hours of Wednesday when unidentified men in plain clothes attacked the peaceful sit-in —apparently with the aim of dispersing the protesters who had camped out there for several days.
Supporters of Salafist former presidential candidate Hafez Abou Ismail had marched to Abbasseya on Friday evening to protest his exclusion from the presidential race. They were later joined by other activists: mainly liberals and members of the 6 April Movement. They all demanded an end to military rule and a swift handover to a civilian government.
“What started as a peaceful demonstration has turned into a bloodbath,” cried Iman Mohamed, an activist who had joined the sit-in a couple of days earlier. She added that the assailants had fired gun shots and used Molotov cocktails and tear gas. Some of the protesters responded by hurling rocks and stones at the assailants, others engaged in fist fights.
“I saw several men wielding batons and another carrying a sword,” said Haytham Sallam, another protester who had arrived at the scene Wednesday morning.
“People dropped dead right in front of our eyes,” he added.
There was a brief lull in the early morning hours before clashes erupted again at 9am and continued for several hours. Most of the dead had sustained fatal head injuries or had been shot in the head. The attackers had also used bird shots and dozens of injured protesters were receiving treatment at a makeshift field hospital set up at the scene or in the nearby Demerdash Hospital.
Some protesters suspected that the assailants were security force members disguised in plainclothes. “How else would you explain the use of tear gas and bird shots?” quizzed Sallam. Others said the use of “thugs” to break up protests had become “an all-too- familiar tactic “ adopted by some elements in the government so that they would not directly take the blame for the violence themselves.
Military soldiers and riot police set up barricades around the area but most protesters said they had done little to break up the clashes or calm the situation. Seven political parties boycotted a meeting that had been called for Wednesday by the military council as rumours spread that the ruling SCAF was planning to postpone the presidential election scheduled for 23 and 24 May.
To allay concerns the Deputy Head of SCAF, General Sami Annan was quoted by Egyptian state television as saying the military was looking into transferring power to an elected president on 24 May (after the first round of elections) instead of at the end of June as had earlier been planned.
The announcement did little to quell public anger, as several protest marches to Abbasseya were organised later in the day by political parties and activists. Another million-person march has also been called for Friday by the Freedom and Justice Party to express outrage at the authorities’ response to the violence and pile pressure on SCAF to sack the government of Prime Minister Kamal el Ganzouri.
In another development, three presidential candidates have suspended their campaigns in honour of those who died in the latest wave of unrest.
Meanwhile back in Abbasseya, protesters issued fiery warnings to SCAF against any delay in the presidential election. ” If there’s any postponement, it will set off more unrest that would be difficult to contain,” warned activist Dina Nasr.
Journalist Shahira Amin resigned from her post as deputy head of state-run Nile TV in February 2011. Read why she resigned from the “propaganda machine” here.
20 Apr 2012 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features
The release of Andrei Sannikov and Dzmitry Bandarenka last weekend was welcome news for Europe’s last dictatorship. But with at least 13 more political prisoners behind bars, Belarus is far from free
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19 Apr 2012 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Ten of the nominees running for president in Egypt have been disqualified due to “legal irregularities”. Muslim Brotherhood candidate Khairat el-Shater and former Vice President Omar Suleiman are among those who have been barred from the election. A spokesman for el-Shater’s campaign called it a “political decision”. The head of Egypt’s executive election committee Hatem Bagato said Suleiman and el-Shater were disqualified because they have unresolved pardons for time in prison.
