Lithuania, No Gay Pride For You
A court in Lithuania, where it is now illegal to promote The Gay, banned a Baltic gay pride parade scheduled for Sunday because “the state will not be able to provide proper protection for the participant.” [Baltic Reports]
It was the Attorney General, who was appointed by the President of Lithuania, who tried to block the Gay Pride parade.
Deutsche Welle reports, “The police, however, say that they have enough manpower to ensure security. Around 800 police officers were supposed to protect the marchers. President Dalia Grybauskaite said she was astounded by what she calls a failure of communication between two of the country’s institutions.
“The bodies responsible for public order, above all the police, have an obligation to ensure a situation remains calm and there are no clashes,” her spokesperson said.”
“”There’s a constitutional right to peaceful assembly. If groups of citizens or organisations aren’t illegal, they have a right to express their views,” a spokesperson for President Dalia Grybauskaite told reporters.”, also reports Deutsche Welle.
“The Lithuanian Attorney General’s Office insists security is the only reason it has asked the court to annul a license for what would have been Lithuania’s first gay pride march in the capital Vilnius.
“Whose fault would it be if anyone gets hurt? It might look like we are homophobic, but I am not sure if we’d look better with pictures of violence on TV,” Attorney General Raimundas Petrauskas said.
Petrauskas believes radical and violent groups are organizing protests and provocations against the participants of the gay march.”
It would’ve been the first Gay Pride parade in Lithuania after the Mayor of Vilnius approved of the parade.
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They are really,Really now concerned about the health and safety of the paraders; a really touching about face.