Homophobia has deep roots in Ukraine, as organizers of the June 6 gay pride march rediscovered.
The gathering of more than 200 people in Kyiv’s Obolon district was broken up by dozens of anti-gay militants who threw flares, fireworks and nail bombs.
Most of the injuries were suffered by police officers, hundreds of whom blocked the attacks successfully. One officer remains hospitalized in serious condition. In all, nine offers were injured.
At least 25 suspects were arrested in the violence.
Intolerance of homosexual rights is well-documented in Ukraine.
According to a 2013 poll conducted by GfK Group, almost 80 percent of Ukrainians said they oppose any homosexual relations. But other aspects of the poll are more hopeful. GfK Ukraine found in late December that at least 34.4 percent of Ukrainians disapprove of discrimination against sexual minorities.
The number of people supporting equal rights is on the rise, Kyiv Pride organizers say.
Olena Semenova, one of the Kyiv Pride organizers, said that despite the attacks, more people are willing to openly support the lesbian-bisexual-gay-transgender, or LBGT, community.
In 2012, Semenova recalls that up to 80 people gathered for a demonstration and many were beaten afterwards. The LGBT community held their first Kyiv pride parade in 2013. This time at least two lawmakers, Svitlana Zalishchuk and Serhiy Leshchenko – both from President Petro Poroshenko’s bloc, attended the march along with the Swedish ambassador to Ukraine, Andreas von Beckerath, and other Western diplomats.
Poroshenko on June 5 said that such a march is “a constitutional right for every citizen of Ukraine.”
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko called on the organizers to cancel the march, citing security issues and bad timing, referring to Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Semenova said they had to reach out to police themselves in order to decide on the location of the march.
Maryna Honda, who heads the communications department at Kyiv City Council, says city officials informed police about the upcoming march and held a number of meetings with march organizers and Kyiv police.
“The negotiations took us at least three weeks and we warned them about possible provocations,” Honda told the Kyiv Post.
The final decision on the location was taken a day before the march took place. The organizers encountered anti-gay discrimination in organizing bus rides to the events.
“One of the drivers we were talking with said that he’d take media, diplomats or whoever, but not faggots in his bus,” Semenova recalls.
She also said the evacuation plan for gay activists was also poorly planned. Many just ran away from the attacks.
The march is a test for Ukraine’s tolerance.
“The front line is not only in the east, it’s also here as we see a clash of European values and anti-values in Ukraine,” Zoryan Kis of Amnesty International told the Kyiv Post. However, the situation in Ukraine is better than in Russia. “In Russia, however, society supports anti-gay moves,” Kis explains.
Even though organizers are happy that the march took place, lots of work remains in changing attitudes.
“The biggest achievement is that we make the problems of the LGBT community visible,” Anna Sharyhina, Kyiv Pride executive director said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached at [email protected].
