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I. Introduction

For the second year in a row, on Sunday, May 27, 2007, a small group of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activists and their supporters tried to stage a peaceful public demonstration in Moscow to claim their rights.  For the second year in a row, anti-gay nationalist groups assaulted them, beating some severely, pelting others with rocks and eggs.  For the second year in a row, police sided with the violent rather than the victims. They failed to protect peaceful demonstrators; in some cases, they colluded with the attacking extremists. 

Police arrested almost 20 people engaged only in nonviolent protest¹—three times more than in 2006—along with a lesser number of their attackers. 

These attacks and arrests come amid a deteriorating climate for human rights in Russia, with freedoms of expression and assembly increasingly in jeopardy.  Journalists have faced harassment and murder. A 2006 law on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) allows for unprecedented government interference into their work. Authorities increasingly crack down on demonstrations challenging government policies—refusing permits and subjecting protesters to excessive force and arrests.²

Attempts to hold a gay pride parade in Moscow have met not just official prohibition but official vilification.  Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who denied a permit to public pride events in 2006, said in February 2007, “Last year, Moscow came under unprecedented pressure to sanction the gay parade, which can be described in no other way than as Satanic. We did not let the parade take place then, and we are not going to allow it in the future.” President Vladimir Putin tacitly gave Luzkhov his approval, suggesting that LGBT people’s rights conflicted with protecting “demography.”³

Since the Moscow gay pride events in 2006, a new wave of LGBT activism has risen in Russia.  Not all these still-small groups participated in the 2007 pride events.  All, however, are determined to see a more open society.  More than two dozen human rights organizations, including LGBT groups, signed a letter in March 2007 condemning violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Even after the May 27 arrests, Human Rights Watch spoke to two young Russians—waiting outside a Moscow police station for their friends to be freed—who described their hopes to start networks of gay and heterosexual people working together, to share experiences and fight hatred.

Russia’s chances to become an open society are still alive, but fading.  While the violence at Moscow Pride 2007 has drawn global attention, it is vital to place the recent brutality in the broader context of diminished civil rights in Russia, in particular the right to freedom of assembly.  With free expression stifled, civil society harassed, and independent media under steady attack, preserving the right to public assembly and protest has become a critical struggle. LGBT people’s ability in Russia to speak out and gather together is inseparable from all people’s capacity to exercise these liberties—and hinges on an end to the spread of repression.  Ruslan Zuev, of the LGBT Network Russia, says, “Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people have no access to the mass media in Russia; they are mentioned only to be despised.  Almost our only opportunity to reach the public is by making a public demonstration on the pavements.”⁴  Much the same is true of all democratic movements in Russia.  All must be defended.

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