Gay March Held in Kyiv With Disturbances

There were a handful of minor disturbances, with 10 arrests, but Kyiv’s LGBT community managed to hold its first ever gay pride parade in the city on Saturday, May 25.

The Equality March was held in an area outside the city center after municipal authorities last week banned the group from holding the event at its originally planned Lva Tolstoho location.

About 50 people from around Ukraine and some from as far away as Sweden and Germany chanted and paraded down a narrow pathway near Pushkin Park and Shuliavska metro station, carrying rainbow flags and signs with slogans such as “LGBT rights = People’s rights.”

The event was planned in secret this year, with organizers requiring participants and media to register using an online form that required them to submit names and phone numbers of gay-friendly people they knew who could vouch for their character.

Text messages were sent to the phones of participants and media early on the morning of the event, telling them when and where to meet.

Dozens of buses parked along Victory Avenue brought more than 300 police in riot gear to the event to keep anti-gay protestors from attacking the march’s participants.

Still, about 10 people managed to infiltrate the march, ripping banners from the hands of marchers and shouting violent anti-gay slogans. Police quickly detained them and dragged them into holding vans nearby. In one case, a man threw a firecracker into the march. No one was injured as a result, and the man was quickly nabbed by police.

After marching down a stretch of sidewalk about 300 meters long, parade participants slipped through an iron gate and boarded buses that would take them to a safe location.

In all, organizers told media at the conclusion of the event that they were happy with the outcome. So reported kyivpost.com.