You're reading: Lawmakers call to ban gay pride parade in Kyiv

A group of Ukraine's lawmakers have appealed to Kyiv city administration Olexander Popov, asking him to ban the first-ever gay pride parade in Kyiv.

A letter to Popov was signed by 61 parliament members. The group included members of the Party of Regions, Communist and Svoboda party factions. The parade was to take place on May 25 and obtained all nessesary persmissions for the rally from the city administration. 

One of the active gay opponents in parliament, Pavlo Unguryan, a member of Batkivshchyna faction, says he fears that such public events “are the first step towards the legalization of same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage,
and then introduction of mandatory training programs for homosexual
parenting. At the end, we will have the prosecution of any critical comments
against these people”.

Gay rights is one of those issues Ukraine’s deputies shun. On May 14, the parliament suspended indefinitely a vote on a bill
that would prevent employers from discriminating against individuals
based on their sexual orientation. According to the bill, an employer would not be able to deny a job to a
potential employee because of his or her sexual orientation.

Ukraine’s first ever attempt at conducting a gay pride parade took place last year. It was also canceled  following recommendation by Amnesty International
and the police who said they could not guarantee the safety of
participants. Prior to the planned event, there were a number of attacks on gay activists involved.

In one case, as gay activists were speaking to journalists, they were attacked by a group of individuals wearing medical masks. The police opened a criminal case but attackers were never found. Photos of the attack went viral.

Amnesty International is concerned that “Ukrainian authorities do not adequately
investigate or prosecute acts of violence motivated by bias. In fact,
those working for the police, prosecutors and other government offices
routinely express negative stereotypes about LGBTI people, calling into
question their willingness to afford everyone equal protection of the
law.”

Kyiv Post intern Artem Babk can be reached at [email protected]