For the fourth year in a row, riot police broke up an attempt to stage a gay Pride parade in Moscow on May 16, arresting up to 80 participants, including local gay leader Nikolai Alekseev, British gay leader Peter Tatchell and Chicago gay activist Andy Thayer.

The city had again banned any public Pride activities. Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has called gay pride parades “satanic” and “weapons of mass destruction.”

This year’s effort to march came just hours before the finals of the übercampy Eurovision Song Contest, held in Moscow this year because Russia won it last year. The competition has a huge gay following across the Continent.

Some of the people arrested, including Tatchell and Thayer, were seized in the middle of interviews with reporters. Photographers were knocked around as police plowed through to get at various activists. Officers managed to tear off one activist’s shirt and bra. Alekseev was seized and held down by no fewer than five policemen.

As he was being hauled off, Tatchell shouted, “This shows the Russian people are not free.”

“The Russian government is using this year’s Eurovision in Moscow as a gala showpiece to show the world how far the country has improved since the early 1990s,” Alekseev said. “However, what was witnessed this afternoon on the streets of Moscow shows the world just how little Russia has traveled when it comes to supporting fundamental human rights. ... This episode has shamed the Russian government and Moscow authorities before the world.”

Several cases stemming from the bans on previous Moscow pride parades are pending at the European Court of Human Rights, which has a huge backlog of cases from Russia.

Meanwhile, the day after the Pride debacle, a much-less-publicized march to mark the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) went off without a hitch.

In an event called “Rainbow Flashmob,” about 35 people marched from the Bolshoi Theater to Pushkin Square, distributing anti-homophobia leaflets and, at the end, releasing rainbow balloons.

“Riot police observed the event and did not detain anybody,” said “Maxim G.” of the Russian LGBT Network.

The network reported that similar events were staged in 40 Russian cities, with the largest in St. Petersburg, where 250 people participated.

Asked why the Pride parade was broken up by police but the Rainbow Flashmob wasn’t, Alekseev said: “If I go on the streets now with the balloons, no one will give a shit. As soon as it is not known to any media and police, and as soon as you don’t make an official request according to the law for the demonstration, you can do what you want. No one cares, as it is not known in the society and in the media.”

The City Council and a court in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, banned the gay “Rainbow Spring 2009” festival in mid May.

The cultural and sports festival was sponsored by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was to have offered a photo exhibition, parties, dances, a soccer tournament, movies and a poetry evening, among other activities.

At least some of the events went ahead as scheduled, though the May 16 poetry evening was aborted when about 40 right-wing extremists blocked the entrance to the House of Artists. Police were called, and the protesters left only after two gay banners were removed from the building. The incident also led to the photo exhibition being shut down prematurely and the cancellation of a buffet dinner that was to accompany the poetry event.

City officials said the ban was in accord with the “religious and ethical beliefs of all residents of the city” and that gay events would have a “negative impact on the moral and spiritual atmosphere of the city” and could lead to “civic unrest” and “mass disorder and conflict.”

City officials in Riga, Latvia, granted permission for a gay Pride parade, then rescinded it, then were overruled by a court.

In the end, around 600 people from 20 countries marched in the vicinity of Vermane Garden park on May 16.

The Baltic Pride Parade moves each year among Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The decision to withdraw approval for the parade came after 34 members of the 60-member City Council called for the march to be banned. The council’s Committee on Meetings and Demonstrations then determined that allowing the march to go ahead would imperil “the health and morality of society.”

The Riga Administrative Court disagreed and ordered that the parade be allowed.

Attempts to ban Riga’s Pride parade in previous years also failed after courts said the Latvian Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights give gay people the right to march.

Anti-gay protesters attacked police at the gay Pride parade in Krakow, Poland, May 16. One person was injured and 20 counterdemonstrators were arrested.

The anti-gays threw eggs, bottles and chairs at the officers.

The parade itself, the city’s fifth Pride march, was not disrupted.

Hundreds of gays marched in Havana on May 16 to mark the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO). It was the first gay march in Cuba’s history.

They were led by Mariela Castro Espín, President Raúl Castro’s daughter, who heads the National Center for Sexual Education.

Parliament President Ricardo Alarcón attended the beginning of the event and said the government should respect the rights of “people with another sexual orientation.”

But he added, “We also have to respect the opinions, the points of view, including the prejudices, that other sectors of society have.”

Assistance: Bill Kelley