Welcome Beck in Moscow

There are obviously a few things in life that really are at the top of thrills. Joining a Moscow gay demonstration these days might make it very high up on that list. Volker Beck, being gay and the parliamentary executive officer of the Green Party in the German Bundestag, decided not to be intimidated and show his flag at the street event in Moscow on saturday.
He was greeted by extremely partial OMON troops, who wanted to add their special flavour to the event that had officially been denied confirmation by Juri Lushkov and a court. Roughly 60 of Russian neonazis and religious fanatics were trying to put a bit of emphasis to the words of Moscow's major. This turned out to be a stone (thrown at Beck) and a hit with the fist to the forehead of Beck, who was also arrested by the police (him not the slapper!) and only released after a few hectic calls to the German Embassy in Moscow.


(Not actually a Proseco-welcome for Beck, Courtesy of AFP)

The official Russia has its problems with homosexuals. It is in good company. Many countries around Russia have no normal relationship towards what they think is an unnormality. In Poland, Ukraine, the Baltics and Belarus (ha ha!) gay and lesbians face discrimintaion that most of the time is state-dictated or at least state-tolerated. The Russian organization Gayrussian even reported that the Mufti of Russia's muslims made clear in February that:

"...The parade should be allowed in no circumstances. If they go into the streets, they should be thrashed. All normal people will do it, both Muslims and the Orthodox."

In February this year during the M-4 summit of the city majors (Berlin, Moscow, London, Paris) we saw a very tied up Lushkov commenting about the Cristopher Street Day events. He said that Moscow should not have such a event. Actually it is quite surprising that Lushkov attends such a meeting at all, with two gay majors (Wowereit from Berlin and Delanoe from Paris). Maybe they were serving him a Proseco ...