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Loading ...Violence mars Bosnia gay pride
09.25.2008 9:35am EDT
(Sarajevo, Bosnia) At least 10 people were injured when protesters attacked people attending Bosnia’s first LGBT rights festival in Sarajevo on Wednesday night.
Dozens of opponents began gathering hours before the opening ceremony of the four-day festival in front of the Academy of Fine Arts. Anti-gay religious and cultural groups - mainly Muslim - had warned for weeks they would demonstrate against the festival.The protesters yelled “kill the gays” and “God is great.”
Despite a large police presence, a number of protesters broke through the lines and began attacking people.
Among the injured where a police officer and two journalists.
About 50 people attended the opening of the festival.
The timing of the festival has irked Bosnian Muslims - the event is taking 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.
Posters calling for death to gays began appearing on streets earlier in the month. Police removed the posters but have been unable to catch the people behind them.
Two prominent imams have publicly condemned the festival, although they 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 this month.
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 timing of the festival has irked Bosnian Muslims - the event is taking place during the holy month of Ramadan.”
Yeah, I’m sure the timing was really important in terms of expressing their murderous homophobia.
Besides shouldn’t the AP write “_their_ holy month of Ramadan”? I hate when the Press unconsciously validates religious superstition. With Islam, they do the same thing when they call Mohammed “The Prophet” in stead of “The Islamic Prophet”. With Christians too the fundamentalist nut is always “devout” which implies of course that liberal believers are less so.
I have several friends from both Bosnia and Serbia. The problem is they are one of the most stubborn people I’ve met once they have their minds set.
I would have moved the parade either before or after the Islamic holiday.
“I would have moved the parade either before or after the Islamic holiday.”
Why? Nothing will come of appeasing a religion that is already homophobic to the point of corporeal violence in its core doctrine. If anything supremacist religions need pride in their face as much as possible so they get the idea that they cannot dictate the lives of others.
This is ridiculous. If these people don’t like gays so much then why do they bother coming to the parade? They should stay away from it then instead of getting so pissed off. They should know by now that they won’t win. The same thing happened in Serbia the first year a pride parade was held but things calmed down in the years afterwards. Hopefully the same will happen in Bosnia.
The attendees at the LGBT festival should have brought pork and beer with them. Upon the onset of the attacks; they should have started popping the tops of the beer and throwing the pork. It is a sin in the muslim belief to come into contact with pork and alcohol. I think that it would have been funny to see them trying to get rid of that particular sin from their bodies. It certainly would have been less violent.
What a bunch of barbarians these religious fanatics are. Who cares if there’s another celebration during their religious holiday? I just don’t get it?
What doesn’t offend these people other than massive oppression and ignorant thinking?