12 Injured as Gay Pride Marchers Attacked in Estonia
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Boneheads and anti-gay protesters armed with stones and sticks attacked a march for homosexual rights in Estonia, injuring around a dozen people in a country that prides itself on its tolerance, organizers said.
Around 20 young men attacked the parade as some 500 gay-rights supporters with rainbow-coloured flags made their way through the winding streets of the capital, Tallinn, in Estonia’s third such annual event, according to march officials quoted by AFP.
Parade spokeswoman Lisette Kampus said about 12 people were injured, including a Frenchman who needed to be hospitalized with a head injury.
Gay rights activists said they were “in shock at this absolutely unacceptable behavior.”
“It’s particularly revolting that the gang, calling themselves Estonian patriots, attacked women demonstrators first. Then they started throwing stones and sticks at everyone,” Kampus told AFP.
She also criticized police. “There were too few police present so they could not really handle the violent attack.”
Police said they detained six people for violating public order.
Only one person had so far officially complained of being attacked, police spokeswoman Julia Garanzha told AFP.
The colorful gay parade set off 20 minutes late after police received a call warning that bombs would explode in Tallinn’s Old Town shortly before the event was to begin. No explosive devices were found.
Marchers carrying rainbow-colored flags, the international banner of gay and lesbian movements, were earlier pelted with eggs as they began making their way through the cobblestoned streets, said Maali Kabin, another spokeswoman for the parade.
Dancing to music that blared from loudspeakers, demonstrators carried placards with messages such as “Love Doesn’t Ask About Gender,” “Right to Be What We Are,” “Children of Gays Need Protection Too,” “We Heteros Support Gays.” Anarchists from the local movement PunaMust, organized an autonomous bloc, giving out leaflets and holding a big banner saying “Anarchists Against Homophobia.”
“The aim of our parade is to show that we exist,” Kabin said. “We don’t promote a certain kind of sexual orientation, but we remind people of our right to be equal with everybody else.”
Despite calls from some critics to ban the march — the culmination of a week-long gay cultural festival called Tallinn Pride — authorities gave permission for the parade.
Two earlier gay pride events held here over the past two years passed without violence.
Estonia’s lesbian and gay community has become more visible after the country regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and became a member of the European Union in 2004.
In the run-up to the Tallinn Pride week, organizers said Estonia had proved the most tolerant to homosexuals of the three Baltic states, which include Latvia and Lithuania.
“Unfortunately, Estonia is now in line with Latvia and Poland, where gay and lesbian parades have been viciously attacked,” Kampus said.
A poll conducted in June showed that one in four Estonians would not want to live next door to a homosexual.
The survey was commissioned by the Postimees newspaper after the Dutch ambassador to Estonia, Hans Glaubitz, asked to be transferred to another posting, saying his partner — a black, gay male — had been harassed.
A gay parade in neighboring Latvia was banned last month. Alternative gay pride events ended violently with homosexuals, journalists and tourists assaulted and 14 people arrested.
Hundreds of protesters blockaded gay-rights activists including a Dutch European lawmaker inside a church in central Riga and pelted them with excrement as they left.
Ok. I have a quick question: [don\’t know if there is any quick answer or not] for Estonia, is this a new thing? Or does this have an historical precedent? What about other neighbours in the region?
For more on what I reckon is going on there, read my blog… hope you like it.
Hi James,
Thanks for dropping by.
I checked yr blog… ’Poles apart’ is the one, yeah?
http://timesonline.typepad.com/gay_global/2006/08/poles_apart.html#more
[James’ blog : GAY GLOBAL — TIMES ONLINE]
http://timesonline.typepad.com/gay_global/
From my reading, yr concern is the manner in which Western liberalism and its associated values (especially those concerned with human sexuality) might be able to supplant those associated with Communism, the historical legacy of which is marked by a profound social conservatism in countries such as Russia, Poland, Estonia et al. (Making Communism more akin to a form of national socialism / fascism than its proponents, few as they now are, would otherwise admit.) Or at least, Western values of the kind institutions such as the EU propagate.
You write:
”Vike-Freiberger described the virulent homophobia in Latvia as being a new development, but perhaps the really important new development at work here is that – doubtless emboldened by the knowledge of the freedoms and tolerance gay people generally enjoy in Western Europe – gay people in the new countries of the EU are coming out of the collective closet. They’re trying to have gay pride marches, even if they’re banned or the police stand by why they’re attacked; they’re also objecting to hate crimes.”
I think that’s a pretty apt description of what’s going on — that is, from my perspective, on the other side of the world, and not speaking anything other than English (and a smattering of Spanish): GLBTIQ folks in these countries are assuming rights, exercising them, and facing repression as a result — both from the (far) right and the state. That’s a very old story, of course, and one which I suspect may not have an ending. (As an aside, I suppose there’s also the question of the extent to which such identities are actually being invoked by the construction of a new economic, political, social and cultural order in eastern Europe…)
On the other hand, I’m not sure I agree that ’liberal values’ in the former Soviet Union (which was neither soviet nor a union) / Empire, and the challenges being faced by ’human rights activists’ / gender rebels in that part of the world may be explained through this clash. So, I’m not convinced that the nature of the state and other social institutions has necessarily changed all that much over the last 10-15 yrs. For example, in many places, the formerly ’Communist’ ruling elites (nomenklatura) have slipped quite happily into their new roles as owners and managers of privatised institutions… meaning, in short, that the so-called ’Velvet Revolutions’ of the late 80s / early 90s failed to express themselves as fully ’culturally’ as they did ’politically’… or vice versa?
Anyways, in the meantime, I find Doug Ireland’s blog DIRELAND a really useful resource in terms of monitoring GLBTIQ issues.
http://direland.typepad.com/
Cheers,
@ndy.