Homophobic Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov is at it again.

“For several years, Moscow has experienced unprecedented pressure to conduct a gay pride parade, which cannot be called anything but a Satanic act,” he said during a public appearance Jan. 25.

“We have banned such parades and will ban them in future as well,” the mayor continued. “Everyone must accept this not as a theorem but as an axiom.”

“It is high time to crack down with all the power and justice of the law rather than messing around with talk of human rights,” Luzhkov said. “We need a social whip or something like that.”

Luzhkov has banned gay pride events in each of the past four years and has sent riot police to violently arrest small groups of activists who ignored the bans.

Moscow Pride organizers have sued over the bans in a series of cases that have been merged into one at the European Court of Human Rights. On Jan. 19, the court approved a request from the Russian government to postpone the deadline for its response in the matter until Feb. 20.

Moscow’s fifth pride events will take place in late May, and another march will be attempted on May 29.

It is unlikely there will be a Euro Court ruling before that time.

Mariela Castro, Cuban President Raúl Castro’s daughter, said Jan. 19 that the Communist Party discriminates against gay people by unofficially denying them party membership.

She said she will send a complaint over the “absurd” practice to her uncle, party head Fidel Castro.

Mariela Castro heads Cenesex, Cuba’s National Sex Education Center. She has a long history of advocating for GLBT people.

Some 400 GLBT leaders from 35 countries attended the fifth Latin America and Caribbean regional ILGA conference Jan. 26-31 in Curitiba, Brazil.

Now known as the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, ILGA is composed of some 670 organizations from 110 nations. It was founded in 1978.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sent a message to the delegates saying “the fight against intolerance and discrimination, and the consequent efforts to respect human nature, including sexual orientation, have guided our government since its first mandate.”

He also expressed support for the government’s 3rd National Human Rights Plan, which favors a national civil-union law.

Delegates heard that 11 nations in the region still criminalize gay sex—Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Gay activists from eight of those nations were in attendance.

A number of “pre-conferences” dealt with matters such as HIV, homophobia in schools, lesbian and bisexual women’s issues, transgender issues, youth issues, racism, health matters, art and culture, the media, and the United Nations.

The opening ceremonies of the main event were attended by several public officials, including Paul Vannuchi, Lula’s secretary for human rights.

Conference support came from the United Nations, the Pan American Health Organization, the Global Fund for Women, the Brazilian Ministry of Health, the Paraná state government, the Curitiba city government, and Brazilian governmental secretariats concerned with women, human rights and racial equality.

Anti-gay MPs delayed a plan at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to pass two important pro-GLBT measures Jan. 27.

One measure contains recommendations to the 47 member nations of the Council of Europe on combating discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The other would submit GLBT-related proposals to the CoE’s Committee of Ministers, which represents the governments of the 47 countries.

It was only the third time PACE had tackled GLBT issues and the first time in 10 years.

But the effort fell apart when opponents introduced some 70 hostile amendments.

“There was not time to consider these fully in the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee before the debate in the full assembly,” said Nigel Warner of the European Region of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association. “So it was decided to hold the main debate as planned, but postpone the voting to the April session of the assembly.”

The measure that is aimed at CoE member countries contains 15 proposals for pro-GLBT action in areas such as freedom of expression and assembly, legal remedies for victims, hate speech, anti-discrimination legislation, the human rights of transgender persons, legal recognition of same-sex partnerships, and joint parental responsibility in same-sex families.

The other measure recommends that the Council of Europe itself increase efforts to combat sexual-orientation and gender-identity discrimination in numerous arenas.

The hostile amendments, which were introduced mainly by Russian MPs and by Italian MPs linked to the Vatican: prioritize freedom of religion over the rights to private life and nondiscrimination; challenge wording that could be construed as limiting the freedom of individuals and religious bodies to speak against GLBT people; demand a place for moral judgment in human rights issues relating to GLBT people; remove language supporting legal recognition of same-sex partnerships, gay adoption and same-sex family rights; eliminate some references to gender identity and to transgender medical care and family life; and protect the right to discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, education and the provision of services.

Assistance by Bill Kelley