At background of threats, LGBT activists state readiness to initiate gay parades in all NCFD regions

The initiators of actions in support of the rights of the LGBT community in the regions of Southern Russia continue receiving threats, said Vladimir Klimov, an activist. Still, despite this, after appealing against the received refusals, as he said, they intend to initiate actions in other regions of the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD). Nikolai Alekseev, another activist, believes that activists’ personal data were disclosed by state bureaucrats.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that activists submitted notifications about planned actions within the All-Russian LGBT campaign in a number of cities of Southern Russia, including Nalchik, Stavropol, Cherkessk and Maikop. The authorities of these four cities refused to sanction the actions.

According to Mr Klimov, in other regions of Northern Caucasus actions will be initiated later.

All the messages with threats have been sent to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which has been considering, since December 2016, the complaint “Alekseev versus Russia”, said Nikolai Alekseev, another initiator of gay parades.

By means of the All-Russian campaign, the organizers sought "the right to the freedom of assembly for LGBT activists," he said.

Meanwhile, many users of one of the Caucasian gay communities in the social network "VKontakte", which has 16,157 subscribers, spoke out against public LGBT actions in the cities of Northern Caucasus.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.