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COMMENT: Dmytro Yarosh, who in addition to being a member of parliament is also now a high-level [8] military adviser [9], recently shared some thoughts on Facebook regarding the annual Kiev gay pride march:He has promised in a Facebook post that the group’s members will “put aside other business in order to prevent those who hate family, morality, and human nature, from executing their plans. We have other things to do, but we’ll have to deal with this evil too,” he wrote.
Pravy Sektor followed through on the threat with multiple bands of militants ready to ambush fleeing protestors after they fled the violent attack on the march. The violent attack that included fireworks and a nail bomb that almost killed one of the police officers [10].
We doubt that the Russian punk rock band Pussy Riot will be protesting about this, as they did the anti-gay stance of the Russian government (of which we do not approve, BTW).
It is impossible within the scope of this post to cover our voluminous coverage of the Ukraine crisis. Previous programs on the subject are: FTR #‘s 777 [11], 778 [12], 779 [13], 780 [14], 781 [15], 782 [16], 783 [17], 784 [18], 794 [19], 800 [20], 803 [21], 804 [22], 808 [23], 811 [24], 817 [25], 818 [26], 824 [27], 826 [28], 829 [29], 832 [30], 833 [31], 837 [32].
“Right Sector Threatens Kyiv Gay Pride March” [33]by Johannes Wamberg Andersen; Kiev [Kyiv] Post; 6/6/2015. [33]
Anti-gay groups in Ukraine, including the militant Right Sector, are threatening to stop a gay pride march planned for June 6.
Referring to the Old Testament in the Holy Bible, the Right Sector — which fields a battalion of soldiers to fight against Russia in eastern Ukraine — called gay people “perverts” who “need to be cured” and promised to “prevent this sodomist gathering.”
>“There will be thousands of us,” Right Sector spokesman Artem Skoropadskyi told the Kyiv Post.
The parade named Equality March will take place on June 6 in Kyiv.
The organizers keep time and place secret until the last moment for safety reasons.
On the morning of the day of the event, the details of the place and time will be sent out to the participants who registered online.
The annual gay prides are often haunted by ultra-conservatives.
In 2012, unknown men attacked and beat up gay rights activist Svyatoslav Sheremet on the day of a planned gay pride that was cancelled because of security reasons.
Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh has promised in a Facebook post that the group’s members will “put aside other business in order to prevent those who hate family, morality, and human nature, from executing their plans. We have other things to do, but we’ll have to deal with this evil too,” he wrote.
Yarosh then upped the stakes by connecting the parade to Russia’s war on Ukraine.
He said that the event would “spit on the graves of those who died and defended Ukraine.”
Echoing Russian rhetoric on the subject, Skoropadskyi said that “gay propaganda is destructive and doing harm to our Christian nation, we can’t allow that.”
President Petro Poroshenko gave his support to the Equality Rights march during a June 5 press conference.
He said citizens have a constitutional right to assembly and that law enforcement agencies would guarantee the safety.
Kyiv Mayor rVitali Klitschko didn’t share the president’s confidence.
He asked the Kyiv lesbian-bisexual-gay-transgender community to cancel the pride march to avoid “inflammation of hatred” and “not to provoke another confrontation in Kyiv.”
Activists said they would go forward with the march anyway.
Representatives from Germany, France and the European Union in Kyiv had engaged in a diplomatic effort to ensure that police would protect the manifestation, lawmaker Serhiy Leshchenko said.
The Right Sector gained broad popularity in Ukraine playing an active role in the EuroMaidan Revolution. . . .
Protected by hundreds of police officers in Kyiv’s Obolon district, nearly 200 persons tried on June 6 to take part in the second gay pride parade in the last three years.
But violence, almost from the start, marred the event and sent people fleeing in chaos and panic. Police broke up the gathering quickly, telling participants to leave because they could not guarantee their safety after dozens of extremists attacked the crowd and police with fireworks, fists and nails.
Several police officers and participants were injured, including one officer who suffered serious wounds after being attacked with fireworks and nail bombs.
More than 20 extremists were arrested on suspicion of violence. Others escaped, including one man who shouted “they should die!” in reference to homosexuals.
Many attackers identified themselves as part of the militant Pravy (Right) Sector. Its leader, member of parliament Dmytro Yarosh, also fields a semi-autonomous battalion in the Ukrainian army. Yarosh, in a long Facebook post on June 5, condemned equal rights for gays and pledged to stop the gathering.
At least two other members of Parliament, Svitlana Zalishchuk and Serhiy Leshchenko, attended the march along with the Swedish ambassador to Ukraine, Andreas von Beckerath, and other Western diplomats.
Zalishchuk said that some of the extremists charged the crowd of marching activists, but were blocked by cordons of police that easily numbered several hundred officers to provide security. She praised the fast police response and witnessed some of the violence.
“One of policemen was almost killed,” Zalishchuk said. “He was wounded very severely in the neck.”
Zalishchuk said that the march and the accompanying violence show that Ukraine still has work to do in accepting gay rights.
While Ukraine has “made great progress in the path of tolerance, which is the core of our European path,” it’s clear to her that only a minority of Ukrainians support equal rights for homosexuals. “It’s definitely a minority, not a majority,” she said, based on public comments in social networks and in conversations.
She said that she has no plans to ask colleagues in Parliament to hold public hearings that would investigate, separately from the police criminal investigation, whether Right Sector instigated the violence.
“I don’t know whether they were all part of Praviy Sector,”Zalishchuk said. “They wrote that they were against it…I don’t know if the instigators themselves were from Pravy Sector.”
She said that the “consequences should be just” against those who committed violence and that, if Yarosh was behind the attacks, “this is unacceptable.”
The march got off to a peaceful start, but for security reasons, the location remained a secret until two hours before its scheduled 11 a.m. start.
“Ukraine is Europe! We are Europe!We share European values!” activists chanted as they marched along the Dnipro River in Kyiv’s Obolon District
Journalists had to gather in Kyiv’s Pechersk district, where they were picked up by a bus and transported to the march.
The extremists, however, were tipped off to the location. They were waiting near the scene and threatened violence from the start.
“It’s a shame to be gay. It’s not normal. They are perverse!” shouted two men in front of the nearby Kyiv Golf Club complex. Police blocked these men. But one attacker injured a police officer with a powerful firecracker. The wound left a puddle of blood on the ground.
“They should all die!” said a young man, his face covered in a balaclava. He didn’t want to explain why “all gays should die,” but constantly repeated that “it’s disgusting.”
Leshchenko, a member of parliament with the Bloc of President Petro Poroshenko, wrote on Facebook that “the fate of Ukraine’s European integration will be determined this weekend during Kyiv’s gay pride parade.”
He also vowed to introduce legislation that would ban discrimination based on someone’s sexuality, a prerequisite for European Union integration.
“We are here not for a party. We’re here to show to the outside world that we’re human and don’t want to bescared of who we are,” said 20-year-old Maxim, a hair stylist, who attended the march with three of his friends. He was too afraid to give his full name as he claimed some provocateurs might hunt him down.
“It’s hard to be openly gay. My parents have known it for a few months, and with my father, I no longer have any contact. There is so much violence targeted at openly gays,” he explained the Kyiv Post. Quickly he pointed to the massive police force. “Is this normal? No, of course not! I hope there will be one day that Ukraine accepts Europe’smoral standards when it comes to LGBT (lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender) rights.”
The event was supposed to start at 11 a.m., but police demanded that participants leave as soon as possible under police escort because they couldn’t guarantee the activists’ safety if they stayed.
But even as the activists fled, anti-gay protesters gathered and clashed with police, some tackling police officers to the ground and beating them. Panic and chaos broke out, with people running through Obolon’s residential areas to find a safe way out.
“Don’t go to the metro stations!” yelled some police officers.
Anti-gay militants were waiting at Kyiv’s Minsk metro station, the closest station to the march, to confront gay activists.
A minivan of Pravy Sektor’s volunteer battalion Ukraine’s Volunteer Corps was spotted on the Heroiv Stalingrad Street, one of the main roads in the Obolon district leading to the Minsk metro station.
People ran across the streets to flee as police repelled the attacks with pepper spray that struck the eyes of two attackers, who fell to the ground. Paramedics quickly arrived. One of the injured men remained defiant.
“I’m a military officer in the east. It’s a shame that our country is allowing these perverts to walk the streets. It’s not okay!” he yelled. He was taken away by medics, while police arrested the other one.
...
Denis Panin, a board member of Fulcrum, one of the organizations involved in the Kyiv Pride event, is hopeful for the future, despite the violence.A gay pride parade in May 2012 was also called off because of violent threats while another march in December 2012 was also marred by attacks.
“Let’s hope that every year the pride gets better and safer, and let’s talk more openly about it. Ukraine is a closeted country, and it has to come out of that closet,” Panin said.