European Greens condemn Police Brutality against LGBT Protesters in Moscow and call for immediate release of those still being held by police
The Spokespersons of the European Green Party today condemned the Moscow Police for arresting peaceful gay and lesbian rights activists on Sunday and standing by while those activists were attacked by extremist thugs. Activists, including European lawmakers, senior foreign human rights officials and celebrities, attempted to submit a letter, signed by around 50 MEPs, protesting against Mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s renewed ban of the Moscow Gay Pride Parade.
EGP Co-Spokesperson Ulrike Lunacek, who is herself a lesbian and is the Austrian Green Party’s Parliamentary Spokesperson on LGBT issues, said:” Just last week we called for international solidarity with the organisers of Moscow Gay Pride. So of course we condemn in the strongest possible terms the arrest on Sunday of several protesters who were not even demonstrating but simply attempting to deliver a letter of protest to the Mayor of Moscow. Our anger is compounded by the fact that the same police who arrested peaceful gay rights protesters stood by and did nothing while many of the protesters were beaten up by religious fundamentalist and extreme-right counterdemonsrators. Among those arrested were German Green MP, Volker Beck, British human rights campaigner and Green Party member Peter Tatchell and Italian Radical MEP Marco Cappato. They have all since been released but Volker Beck has said police beat him. The Russian organisers of Moscow Pride, including Nikolai Alekseev, are still being held by police and will have to appear in court where they could receive a maximum sentence of 15 days. We call on all our members and everyone who cares about human rights to lobby their governments to call for their immediate release.”
EGP Co-Spokesperson Philippe Lamberts added:” This type of police action simply confirms that human rights are not respected in President Putin’s Russia. We therefore call on German Chancellor Angela Merkel to ensure that this matter is discussed during the G8 summit in Heilegendamm from June 6th to 8th. Russia, as a member of the Council of Europe and a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, has a responsibility to allow its citizens the right to peaceful protest. European democracies must do everything they can to ensure that Russia does not shirk that responsibility. In this case, EU countries should impose a travel ban on Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, just as they did on Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko because of his appalling human right record.”
Both Spokespersons emphasized that the events in Moscow have implications that go much further than Russia’s LGBT community: “ The violence and arrests we saw on Sunday are part of a much wider attack on civil liberties and human rights in Russia. We in the EU must put pressure on our leaders so that they do much more to defend those rights.” Lunacek and Lamberts concluded.
Graham Burgess
Communications Officer
European Green Party
email:graham.burgess@europeangreens.org
Tel no:+32 2 626 0724
Mobile no:+32 477 902 023