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Loading ...Bosnia police brace for Gay Pride violence
09.10.2008 4:23pm EDT
(Sarajevo, Bosnia) Two weeks before Bosnia holds its first LGBT Pride festival, police in Sarajevo say they are preparing for potential violence.
Posters calling for death to gays have been appearing in Sarajevo ahead of the Queer Sarajevo Festival, scheduled for Sept. 24 to 27.Police have been removing the posters as soon as they receive reports about them, but so far have been unable to catch the people behind them.
The timing of the festival has irked Bosnian Muslims. The event will take place during the holy month of Ramadan.
Sarajevo, once a beacon of multiculturalism and tolerance with a mix of Christians and Muslims, became predominantly Islamic after the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
Two prominent imams have publicly condemned the festival, although have refrained from endorsing violence.
“We will not grab them by the neck on the street, but we have to say: This is immoral,” Imam Seid Smajkic told the daily newspaper Dnevni Avaz.
On Bosnian television, another imam, Sulejman Bulgari, said that the Quran forbids homosexuality and that the holy book is clear about it.
Pride organizers say they did not intend to offend Muslims, and that the date was set a year ago.
“It coincided with Ramadan unintentionally,” Q Association leader Svetlana Djurkovic said, adding that conservative Muslims would have been offended no matter when the festival was held.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said it was concerned that politicians have not done enough to reminded the public discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is illegal.
“The mission strongly condemns attempts to incite violence against any group within Bosnia and Herzegovina,” the OSCE said in a statement, adding that the anti-gay posters “are intended to do just that.”
Throughout the countries of the former Yugoslavia, LGBT people have few rights and discrimination is rampant. Slovenia is the only republic that has a registry for same-sex couples, although it provides few benefits.
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Mark,
America did not cause this problem with Bosnian gay pride, that is something to do with their local culture which is not used to such things that are taken for granted in more advanced parts of the world. Bosnia and other parts of the Eastern European countries are homophobic even though at this time there are no Eastern European countries remaining where being gay is illegal.
Even in Armenia (Hayastan), Azerbaijan and the counry of Georgia (Sakartvelo) and even in Turkey (all with cultures that have both European and Asisn influences) gay is legal but not largely popular.
Being gay is legal in Bosnia and in all of the other republics of the former Yugoslavia, with Slovenia being the best of the former republics in the beautiful Alpine region of Europe (the only Slavic land in the Alps)bordering on Italy and with at least something akin to gay civil unions in their land. Slovenia is the only part of the former Yugoslavia to give official recognition to gay relationships, even though the benefits are few compared to other more western and more northern parts of Europe. All of which has to do with regioaal and local cultures and nothing to do with America.
Can we please find a way to blame this on America? Please!!!
Bosnian Muslims calling for the death of queers and showing intolerance should remember that not too long ago they were the target of bigotry and violence. Maybe they haven’t learnt anything from that experience.
One more European country I am glad I don’t live in.