Ukraine activists scrap gay pride parade after court ban

ODESSA, Ukraine – Gay rights activists in Ukraine have cancelled a planned pride parade Saturday, August 15, in the port city of Odessa after a local court banned the event. 

“The decision of the court is illegal and violates our constitutional right of assembly,” Kyrylo Bodelan, a spokesman for the Odessa Pride group, told the Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Bodelan said that the group would instead hold a public discussion on the history of the gay rights movement in the city.

“They banned us from marching,” Bodelan said. “We will instead try nonetheless to do a small part of what we had planned.”

The gay pride event was blocked Thursday by a local court in the strategic Black Sea port city on the back of concern from authorities that it could spark violence.

A gay pride march in the capital Kiev in June – the second in the nation’s post-Soviet history – was marred by scuffles after activists were attacked by far-right nationalists.

The socially-conservative country — locked in a bruising war with pro-Russian insurgents — is seeking a closer alliance with Europe and remains keen to promote civil liberties freely enjoyed in much of the West.

But homophobia remains rampant in a nation where the conservative Orthodox church wields considerable influence and nationalist far-right groups have grown more prominent.  

The event in Odessa was opposed by prominent extreme nationalist group Pravy Sektor, with one of the organisation’s local leaders pledging that the event “would not take place.”

The administration of Odessa regional governor Mikheil Saakashvili, the Westernising ex-president of Georgia, kept its distance from the controversy, insisting it was a matter for the city authorities. – Rappler.com