Source: Deutsche Welle, Associated Press via IHT, UK Gay News

Gay rights activists and their opponents have squared off Saturday during a parade in downtown Riga, Latvia in what has become an unfortunate springtime tradition in the Baltic country.

For the first time, however, the demonstration in Riga was mostly peaceful this year, and included an unprecedented official call for tolerance by the country's president.

In 2005 and 2006, pro-gay activists in Riga were attacked by anti-gay demonstrators who pelted them with eggs, fruit and excrement.

In 2007, several hundred police, including heavily-armored riot squads, formed a human barrier at the Vermanes Park in central Riga as up to 500 gay activists staged a peaceful "March for Equality" inside its fenced-in perimeter.

But this year, the event -- held for the first time on a street -- appears to have been peaceful. Associated Press reports that a Latvian police spokeswoman said five people were detained including one person on the parade and four protesters.

City officials shut a wide boulevard for several hours Saturday to allow a march by what Associated Press estimates was about 300 people. Security forces protected the marchers from about 400 anti-gay demonstrators shouting slogans and waving banners.

No Latvian politicians showed up to support the marchers, AP reports, but on Friday President Valdis Zatlers called on society to be tolerant toward sexual minorities.

After the parade, organizers read the president's call for tolerance to the cheering crowd.

“My personal attitude... will never change,” President Valdis Zatlers said in his statement, after saying that that he "absolutely opposed any kind of intolerance" -- a position he has always taken.

"I think that the main thing for people is not only to stop being intolerant, but also to understand others.

"One thing of which I am certainly proud, and of which I am proud whenever I meet with foreigners, is that ours is a democratic country."

Latvia, as well as its Baltic neighbors Estonia and Lithuania, has been criticized by human rights organizations for intolerance toward sexual minorities.

Turning specifically to the controversy over 'gay issues', Zatlers' statement continued, "one thing we need respect when we talk about various social privileges or legal issues is the so-called common household.

"If some people have a common household and they have — let’s say — the common life of a single gender, then we certainly need to resolve these aspects of social privileges … inheritance, the right of the spouse to enjoy certain privileges, and so on.

"That is what needs to be done, and it would be a gesture of understanding, comprehension and good will."

In Latvia and its Baltic neighbors, homosexuality was outlawed throughout the Soviet occupation. It was decriminalized only after independence in 1991, but public attitudes have been slow to change.

A wide cross-section of Latvian society took part in the March for Equality. There were young and old, gay and straight, skin colours of every hue, UK Gay News reports. There were also a number of supporters from other countries.

However, there is a considerable number of Latvian gay men and women who are still too scared to participate.

"I would very much like to go on the march," a gay man, who asked not to be identified, told UK Gay News over a drink in the Golden Bar Friday evening.

"But I am scared that I will be seen by someone I know and this will result in problems within my family and at work.

"You are so lucky in your country," he said, referring to the UK, "that homosexuality is so open.  Perhaps one day here ..."

Up to 100 volunteers from Amnesty International's British and Scandinavian groups were planning to attend events in Latvia on Saturday, Amnesty researcher Anders Dahlbeck said.

Latvia's failure to protect sexual minorities "has been very concerning, and we believe our presence at the march will ensure that the Latvian authorities feel obliged to protect the march, including both Latvian and international participants," he told German press agency, DPA last week.

Members of the Danish parliament had also planned to act as observers in Riga, German newsweekly Deutsche Welle reports. "I hope our being there will give the right signal to the troublemakers," the Danish Social Democrat Flemmin Moeller Mortensen told a Danish radio station last week.

In past years, the violent protests were sparked mainly by church leaders and right-wing politicians that frequently accuse gay activists of being pedophiles, perverts, criminals, drug addicts and mentally ill.

"I don't think we should allow a small percentage of society to spread their perversion" ," the Latvian capital's Deputy Mayor Andris Argalis told LETA news agency on Wednesday. "Otherwise, we will have to give equal rights to other groups of people with sexual deviances."

Riga's Roman Catholic archbishop, Janis Pujats, issued a letter this week condemning the parade as "unlawful," saying it is immoral.

The archbishop condemned homosexuality as going "against the natural order and therefore again the laws of God," Deutsche Welle reports.

The German newsweekly offers a survey of the problems human rights activists face throughout eastern Europe, as "the season of eastern European gay pride parades is at hand to remind authorities of tolerance toward sexual minorities."

Despite the seething undercurrent of intolerance still prevalent in Eastern Europe, public displays of solidarity continue against what the magazine calls "a backdrop of resentment and threats of violence."

But the political situation has improved this year as gay activists in Latvia, Romania, and Poland were all given official permission to march. The groups argued that it's their right under European Union law. In Moscow, however, the city authorities denied a gay rights group a permit to march on Saturday for the third year in a row.

Around 200 gay activists marched through Bucharest, Romania last weekend in a heavily policed pride parade that defied efforts by Romanian religious and far-right groups to have the annual event banned.

Romania's fifth annual gay festival went ahead despite an attempt by anti-gay groups to get a court to rule against the march.

Before the pride march took place, two counter-demonstrations were held, including one by a far-right group whose members chanted "Romania does not want you" in a protest they said was "against sin."

Romania decriminalized homosexuality in 2001, but gay people often face hostility in this largely conservative country of 22 million where the powerful Orthodox Church views homosexuality as a sin and a disease.

As in Latvia today, there were no reports of violence last week in Bucharest. That was a refreshing contrast to the event in 2007, when around 1,200 riot police faced an angry mob and detained dozens of protesters who tried to break up the march.

In Moscow, organizers have appealed to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to override the city administration's ban on the parade.

Tensions in predominantly Catholic Poland appeared to have abated after the country's right-wing government lost elections last year, but they didn't disappear, Deutsche Welle reports.

Pro-gay groups and Amnesty International say discrimination based on sexual orientation persists. Warsaw's gay pride march is planned for July 7.

Amnesty International also weighed in on the Baltic country of Lithuania for failing to respect the rights of its LGBT citizens.

In its 2008 report on the state of human rights worldwide, Amnesty said: "Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) peoples' human rights were not respected and several LGBT events were cancelled in a discriminatory manner. (The Lithuanian) parliament also discussed banning information which would put homosexuality in a positive light to minors.”

The report also highlighted the decision of Vilnius Mayor Juozas Imbrasas to ban an EU-sponsored anti-discrimination truck from coming to the Lithuanian capital and to refuse permission for a tolerance campaign rally by homosexuals last May.

It also noted that sexual minorities were refused the right to put social advertising on public transport buses based on Imbrasas's decision to give "priority to the traditional family" and his disapproval for the public display of homosexual ideas in the city.

Full article: Pride Season Pits Pro-Gay Groups Against Intolerance | Deutsche Welle
Latvian President Call for Tolerance Understanding on Gay Issues | UK Gay News
Gay rights activists, angry protesters square off in downtown Riga | International Herald Tribune (AP)