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14 September 2007, 15:29Moscow gays detained for attempted rally around health ministry
Moscow, September 14, Interfax - Police have detained several representatives of sexual minorities who attempted to stage an unauthorized rally near the Russian Healthcare and Social Development Ministry building in central Moscow on Friday.
Organizer of the picket and of the failed Moscow gay pride parade Nikolay Alexeyev said earlier that the authorities of Moscow's Central Administrative District banned a rally in front of the ministry's building. The rally was held in protest of a decision that bars homosexuals from being blood donors.
"Since this ban was, in our view, illegal and to submit to it would mean to connive at the lawlessness of the authorities, we have decided to stage our protest anyway," one of the detained protestors, Alexey Davydov, told Interfax.
Protestors came up to the health ministry building, "where police officers, without introducing themselves, seized our banners, handcuffed us and brought us to a police station," he said.
"We fought for our civil rights so that homosexuals were regarded on the same level with prostitutes and drug addicts. This was not even a political protest, it had nothing to do with a gay pride parade," Davydov said.
Of the ten people who rallied, seven were detained and are currently being held at Tverskoy police department. |
