MOSCOW, July 14, 2008 (GayRussia.ru)  –  A planned demonstration denouncing executions of gays and minors in Iran in front of its embassy in Moscow planned for Saturday has been banned by the Prefecture of the Central Administrative Area of Moscow.

Officials at the Prefecture said today that they are unable to provide security during the event at which around 30 activists were expected.

For the past two years, demonstrations have been staged in front of the embassy in Moscow on July 19 as part of an international campaign against executions of gay men and women – and youths – in Iran.

“The Moscow authorities once again breached Russian Constitution and Russian legislation on public events,” suggested Nikolai Alekseev, organiser of Moscow Gay Pride.

.”Without any reasons they banned another action of sexual minorities and deprived them of their right to protest.”

He went on to suggest that “this time it is more than obvious that the denial to conduct the picketing was discriminatory on the basis of sexual orientation.

“We applied to the Prefecture with the identical notification to the ones we used in the last two years adding one word,” he said.

“Before we said that we were protesting against executions of minors and this time we said that we will protest against executions of minors and homosexuals.  This was enough for the authorities to ban the event.”

Mr. Alekseev went on to say that this latest ban would be appealed to Taganskiy District Court of Moscow.

“This is just another example that Moscow authorities actually banned all public events of sexual minorities in the city, depriving this social group of their constitutional right which is guaranteed by Article 31 of the Constitution.”

“After the ban of the event it was decided to cancel it altogether as we will only face arrests by the police.  We have already informed international coordinators about this cancellation and they have accepted it with understanding,” he said.

■  As of today there are five applications of Russian gay activists pending in the European Court of Human Rights on the issue of public events bans in Moscow.  Two of them concern the bans of Moscow Pride events in 2006 and 2007 and the other three are connected to the bans of various pickets in 2007.

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Posted: 14 July 2008 at 10:00 (UK time)