NLGF of Ireland Calls for Government Action

NLGF of Ireland Calls for Government Action Press Release || Friday, July 6

The National Lesbian and Gay Federation will raise the assault of the participants in the first Pride Parade in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Brian Cowen. Ciaran Wallace, co-chairperson of the NLGF, said: "We will ask the government to make representations to the EU and directly to the Serbian authorities over their failure to protect the safety and to guarantee the freedom of association of participants in Belgrade's Pride Parade."

Serbia's first pride parade was to have taken place on 30 June. However, as participants assembled, they were savagely attacked and driven away by soccer hooligans and nationalists thugs. A number of participants in the parade were injured. "It seems clear that, despite advanced warning that the parade would be attacked, Belgrade's police took inadequate measures to protect the safety of participants and to ensure their freedom of association and expression", Mr Wallace said.

The NLGF will also express concern at developments that occurred within a few days of the parade. Two days after the attack, on Monday 2 July, the Serbian Prime Minister, Zoran Djindjic told a Belgrade radio station that Serbia is not yet ready to tolerate difference at the highest level, "I think it is too early to stand this test of tolerance in a country that has been in isolation for so long, and which has had a repressive patriarchal culture," said Mr Djindjic in a comment on the attack on the parade. In a separate development, Mr Djindjic announced on 5 July that at the start of the next school year, parents and children would be able to choose between classes on relgious education or on democracy, human rights and tolerance,

These events and statements followed on the 29 June Brussels Donor Conference, at which some EURO 1.5 billion of aid was pledged to Yugoslavia, conditional upon compliance with generally respected standards of human and minority rights. Ciaran Wallace said: "We believe that the failure of the Serbian authorities to provide protection for the participants in the pride parade is a serious breach of this condition. We will ask Mr Cowen to raise the issue in the EU, which has pledged nearly one-third of the total aid." "The EU should make representations to the Serbian authorities over the need to guarantee the fundamental rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered minority, and to provide full and proper protection from violence and discrimination for this minority. This includes the behaviour of the police and the way in which the education system operates", Mr Wallace said.