Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

Pride Parade cancelled in Serbia due to "security risks"

pride | 22.09.2009 12:37 | Gender | Repression | Social Struggles | World

This morning organisers Belgrad Pride held their final press conference before tomorrows pride parade. Except pride will not be held, due to high security risks and a lack of cooperation on the part of state and police to secure the event. Serbian police have cancelled permission for the pride to be held in its planned location in the centre of the city.

This is after months of planning by the organising team, and repeated assurances from government at all levels, the minister for minorities, and the Serbian premier and president, that the pride will be secured and protected.

a full security study was commissioned more than three months ago by pride organisers and executed by the university defence department constructing a detailed strategy for all logistical possibilities to carry out pride safely with full instructions for how police would secure pride participants entrance to the parade, their safety during the event and their ability to leave the event unmolested.

This security study also made detailed recommendations for preventative measures that could be taken by police in the months leading up to pride to minimise the risk of violence. Police did not undertake these measures and despite months of meetings with pride organisers and daily meetings in the past two weeks have failed to act on security measures, instead choosing the tactic of pressurising organisers to cancel the event.

In the last 48 hours the police in meetings with pride organisers refused all cooperation for the securing of the pride, applying further pressure to organisers to cancel. police refused to take responsibility for maintaining public order during the event. Instead telling the pride organisers that they would be held responsible for any public damage caused by the hooligans and fascist groups who have been organising a violent response to pride.

In the past week the logistical plans of fascist groups for their violence towards pride participants have been published in serbian media, these plans include calls for the lynching and beating LGBT people attending the pride. Serbia has laws against hate speech but at no point has there been any move on the part of authorities to prosecute, instead the official line has been that this is *a debate, an exchange of opinions*

Public statements in support of pride have been made at the level of European parliament as this is an important step forward for human rights in Serbia and would signal an end to the rule of right wing violence over the rights of minority groups and an entry of serbian society into a new era of more open equality.

Police have offering an alternative venue on the edge of town, tho how this event might be better secured than the location formerly agreed upon is not known. Today pride organisers have officially requested that police take action against fascist and right wing organisations who have issued hate speech against LGBT groups and pride in the press. Pride organisers continue to meet today to discuss possible courses of action to demonstrate against this failure by serbian state and police to defend our most basic human rights, the right to safely walk the streets.

WRITE TO:
Boris Tadić
Predsednik Republike Srbije
Andrićev Venac 1
11000 Beograd
Tel: +381 11 3632 007, 3632 136
Fax: +381 11 658 584, 361 78 65
Email: kontakt.predsednik@predsednik.rs

PrimeMinister - President of the Serbian Government
Mirko Cvetkovic
Predsednik Vlade Republike Srbije
Nemanjina 11
11000 Beograd
Serbia
Tel: +381 11 3617-719
Fax: +381 11 3617-609
Email: predsednikvladesrbije@srbija.sr.gov.rs

First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior
Ivica Dačić
Nemanjina 11
11000 Beograd
Serbia
Tel/Fax: +381 11 3617-586
Email:  kabinet.zpv@sr.gov.rs
E-mail: muprs@mup.sr.gov.yu
www.mup.sr.gov.yu

Mayor of Belgrade
Dragan Djilas
Dragoslava Jovanovića 2, 3229-678
Email:

Minister of Human and Minority Rights
Svetozar Ciplic
Bulevar Mihajla Pupina 2
11000 Beograd
Email:  kabinet@ljudskaprava.gov.rs


pride

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech