Source: AFP, GayRussia.ru press release
MOSCOW (AFP) — The Moscow mayor's office said on Wednesday it would not allow gay pride marches -- previously broken up by ultra-nationalists -- to take place on this year's May Day holiday.

The announcement came as a gay rights leader said he planned events throughout May to highlight the repression of sexual minorities in Russia.

"The council will act decisively and uncompromisingly to prevent attempts to hold such events because society is overwhelmingly opposed to the gay lifestyle and philosophy," council spokesman Sergei Tsoi was quoted by Interfax as saying, in comments confirmed to AFP by a member of his staff.

"It is a matter of surprise and indignation that gays plan to carry out unsanctioned gatherings in various parts of Moscow during the Festival of Peace and Work," Tsoi said, referring to May 1, one of the most important Soviet-era holidays.

The activist group Gay Russia announced earlier this month that it had invited the mayors of three of Europe's largest cities -- two of them openly gay -- to attend gay pride observances in late May.

Tsoi said the council was taking into account threats of violence made by radical Orthodox and other anti-gay groups.

"There could be bloodshed and no one wants that," Tsoi said.

Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov has been an outspoken opponent of gay pride marches, referring to them once as "Satan's work."

An unsanctioned parade on May 27 last year, the anniversary of the abolition of a Soviet law that criminalized homosexuality, ended with ultra-nationalists throwing eggs and punching and kicking gay activists.

The leader of the activist group Gay Russia, Nikolai Alexeyev, said the group planned to apply for permission to hold five events a day throughout May in various parts of Moscow.

"This is not a question of security. It is only a question of the personal hatred of the Moscow mayor towards gay people," Alexeyev told AFP.

On March 20, Alexeyev's group announced that it had sent letters to mayors Bertrand Delanoë (Paris), Ken Livingstone (London) and Klaus Wowereit (Berlin) inviting them to attend a gay pride observance and associated conference being held in the Russian capital on May 30 and 31.

According to their statement, Nikolai Baev and Nikolai Alekseev point out in the letter to the mayors that in Russia gay men and women face enormous difficulties in publicly expressing themselves.

“You always support the fundamental right of homosexual people to openly manifest and to publicly express themselves,” they say in their letter to the city halls.

Full article: AFP: Moscow mayor outlaws May Day gay events | AFP
Top European Mayors Invited to May’s Moscow Gay Pride | GayRussia.ru press release