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Serbia

Serbian Anti-Gay Right Groups Threaten Violence At Planned Pride Parade

Right-wing ultra-nationalists warn of a repeat of the street bloodshed seen in 2010 if the government allows a Gay Pride Parade in Serbian Capital

By Mark Singer | BELGRADE, Serbia -- Serbian right-wing nationalist organizations have announced their intent to protest and disrupt the planned September 28 LGBT Pride parade in the Serbian capital, should the government grant the country's LGBT advocacy groups permission to march. 

"It will be just like in 2010", Ivan Ivanovic, from the right-wing group "Naši" warned, referring to bloody street clashes with police guarding the Belgrade Pride participants that year. 

"If we let this [parade] happen, they will as soon as tomorrow ask for legalization of their marriages, and then ask for the right to adopt children. Poor Orthodox Serbian children and all other children! Poor little innocent children. Like in Western Europe."

A spokesperson for Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic told LGBTQ Nation Tuesday that an Interior Ministry and police security assessment of the Pride Parade permit request is to be delivered to Prime Minister Dacic Friday and based on its recommendations he will make the final decision to approve or nix the event. 

Serbian right-wing nationalist organizations met with media outlets Tuesday including Mladen Obradovic, president of Srbski Obraz, an organisation recently banned by the government, to announce their intent to counter protest should the Serbian government approve a Pride parade permit.

"People are deeply unsatisfied, and are telling us that they will go onto the streets in vast numbers to protest. If that happens again, we all know that Belgrade streets will see bloodshed, and that's in no one’s interest," Obradovic warned.

Obradovic went on to charge that "allowing a Gay Pride rally in Serbia is an attempt to break the Serbian social code" which he claimed was an American government plan implemented after October 5, 2000 by the CIA to impose western ideology.[The date was when then Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's nationalist regime fell]

He also claimed that his organization had filed criminal charges against Pride organizers in Serbia's Constitutional Court, but had not received an answer. Then he took aim at other European governments alleging;

"Behind this [parade] are the embassies of Holland, Germany and Norway, which shows that someone feels it is in their interest to undermine our constitution, laws, and above all our Orthodox religion and our culture," he maintained.

Ivanovic who had echoed Obradovic's warning about bloodshed added "Although we have nothing against them [gays and lesbians], we do not want them on the streets, spreading LGBT propaganda," he said.

Pakistan

Government agency blocks access to LGBT information website labeling it "against Islam"

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- A government watchdog agency, Pakistan’s Telecommunication Authority, has blocked the website Queerpk.com, which is designed to raise awareness about LGBT issues and offer advice and provide sex education to that country’s LGBT community. Kamran Ali, spokesman for the PTA said Monday that the agency removed access after "numerous" complaints had been lodged with the agency about the site's content.

"We blocked the website under the law because its content was against Islam and norms of Pakistani society," Ali said.

The website's founder who requested anonymity, told journalists with western media outlets including LGBTQ Nation;

"Our website does not contain any explicit or offensive content so the PTA decision to close down the website without any notice is unconstitutional and opposes freedom of speech." 

He added, "Mostly, us homosexuals use this website to bring forward health-related issues as sex education is a taboo in this country."

The site founder, who noted that its been mirrored on another domain outside of Pakistan, [humjins.com] said that he was not going to challenge the PTA block in the country's courts explaining that he feared a serious negative backlash.

"We wanted to provide a platform for people who are being abandoned by society because of their sexual likes," he said. "I was not hopeful about the future of the website, I was convinced that sooner or later it would be banned."

According to his site statistics, 44 percent of its users identify as female with 56 percentage identifying as male.

The laws in Pakistan still list homosexuality as criminal, although one PTA official- who requested to remain anonymous- acknowledged that those laws are rarely enforced.