GAY NAZI VICTIMS RALLY BANNED

Moscow city authorities have refused to allow a rally in memory of LGBT victims of the Nazis during World War II to be held in the Russian capital.

According to GayRussia.Ru, gay activists applied for permission to hold the rally, consisting of only 20 people, in Kudrinskaya Square on Tuesday next week .

Their aim was to “carry out a reminder about the crimes of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany against gays and lesbians, the memory of the homosexual victims of Nazi concentration camps and attract the attention of the world community to prevent similar crimes in the future”.

The city denied permission for the event on the basis that it believes that the rally would be in violation of the country’s notorious ‘gay propaganda law’.

Controversial Russian LGBT rights activist Nikolai Alekseyev said on Friday that the “Moscow authorities have become increasingly absurd”.

By banning the rally, he said, the authorities are indicating that they “in fact approve of Nazi Germany’s genocidal policies”.

He added that activists would continue to flood the city with requests for rallies and would challenge all refusals in the courts.

Russia has come under increasing international pressure over its gay propaganda law which dramatically restricts the LGBT community’s freedom of speech and expression.

The recently enacted law, which effectively bars gay and lesbian public events such as Pride parades, has been blamed for inciting an increase in violence and discrimination against LGBT people.

Even before the law was passed, Moscow had repeatably rejected attempts to hold Pride events. These have been banned in the city for eight years in a row.