BELGRADE: The Serbian Pride Parade that was supposed to be held last Sunday has been banned, along with all other public gatherings scheduled for the week after the National Security Council declared it an “event of high security risk.” This happens for the second time in three years since the 2009 Pride was also canceled for security reasons. The main reasons cited behind the decision on the prohibition of the Pride were an “unstable political situation in the country caused by the crisis in northern Kosovo” combined with the intelligence information that “violent groups had been organizing and preparing themselves to cause incidents throughout the city by setting public property on fire in order to create confusion among the police forces,” thus preventing them from protecting the participants of the parade. Ivica Dačić, leader of the Socialist Party of Serbia, the deputy prime minister and the Minister of Interior said on Monday that the decision to ban the Parade was a rational one taking into consideration the crisis that emerged in the north of Kosovo. He added that it would be “inconsiderable from the part of the organizers to insist on carrying on with the parade in light of the events that have disturbed the southern Serbian province.” Mayor of Belgrade Dragan Djilas was not very supportive of the event either. As a guest on an extremely popular TV program “Utisak nedelje” he expressed his opposition to the very idea of pride arguing that the Pride is a threat to “property, members of gay population, the police and citizens of Belgrade.” Following this decision, LGBT organizations stopped traffic for a short while in the central Terazije square in Belgrade, expressing their frustration against the unwillingness of the authorities to provide safety for peaceful demonstrators. “By a series of pathetic excuses, intimidation through the media, equalization of the victims and the villains, manipulation and above all by rejecting to properly deal with fascist and other extreme groups who function under the auspices of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Serbian authorities have once again confirmed that their only concern is how to stay in power,” said a statement by the activists on QueerSerbia.com. At a press conference the organizers held on the proposed date of the Pride, a number of public personalities expressed their disappointment with the prohibition of the parade for the second time in three years. Famous Serbian actress Mirjana Karanović was stunned by the step that was taken by the authorities recognizing the failure of the state in the past decade to legally prosecute the “hooligans,” who have been “causing violence on the streets of Belgrade on more than one previous occasion.” Furthermore, the Director of the Council of Europe Office in Serbia Antje Rotemund expressed her concern with the level of violence and hatred in Serbian society that led the government to come up with an extremely dangerous decision to prohibit a peaceful public gathering. She emphasized the need for politicians to actively promote and protect minority rights and fight against the prejudice and stereotypes. Amnesty International also issued a statement in which it criticized authorities in Belgrade for bowing to pressure from far-right political organizations to the expense of human rights guaranteed by the law and the Constitution. The controversial Law on Anti-Discrimination was adopted in 2009 after continuous pressures by EU officials and with a strong opposition from right-wing organizations and the Serbian Orthodox Church. After the draft was withdrawn from parliamentary consideration for about one week, the Articles 20 and 21, which prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender, were finally adopted in the Parliament, by the narrowest of margins. Serbia continues to struggle with discrimination and the banning of the parade was yet another symbol of this divide that exists in society. BM
