By Juris Lavrikovs and Lisette Kampus

RIGA, March 21, 2008  –  The mayors of the capitals of Estonia and Latvia have refused to sign up to the International Lesbian and Gay Association-Europe campaign on the freedom of assembly and expression for gay men and women across Europe.

The campaign was launched by ILGA-Europe last April and the aim was to mobilise as many mayors of European cities as possible to sign ILGA-Europe’s appeal, declaring their support for LGBT people to exercise their right to freedom of assembly and expression.

So far, 19 mayors of European cities have signed the appeal.  They are: Paris, Nicosia, Amsterdam, Winterthur, London, Stockholm, Cologne, Barcelona, Venice, Vienna, Bologna, Manchester, Copenhagen, Budapest, Ljubljana, Zürich, Berlin, Dublin and Luxembourg.

Following these promising letters of support, ILGA-Europe has recently received one letter of refusal and is aware that another mayor is also refusing.

The fist letter of refusal to sign the appeal came from Jānis Birks, Mayor of Riga, the Latvian capital.

Mr Birks started his letter on a very promising note stating that, “the Riga City Council truly supports your initiative, greatly appreciates the actions of the campaign and all the possible positive effects generated by the project” and that the Riga City Council is “very open to deepening and broadening our partnership in concrete initiatives in the years to come”.

However, the Riga Mayor concluded that “the decision on the appeal should rather remain an individual competence of each City”.

While refusing politely to sign the appeal, the Riga Mayor wished this campaign “every success” and expressed his belief “that actions of the project will result in a fruitful cooperation among the cities and highlight the best solutions for dealing with challenges of today’s world.”

ILGA-Europe looks forward to the ‘partnership and cooperation’ promised by the Mayor of Riga.  For a start, the approval and monitoring of the 4th Riga Pride March to be organised on 31 May 2008 that is currently being submitted by the Latvian LGBT alliance, Mozaika.

ILGA-Europe’s appeal has caused considerable discussions and media coverage in Estonia.

Edgar Savisaar, the Mayor of Tallinn stated that as this is an issue of importance from society point of view, and therefore in order to form an opinion on the appeal, he forwarded this appeal to Tallinn City Council’s education and culture commission for discussion and recommendations before the Council forms an opinion.

Following the discussion, the commission decided to advise the Mayor to reply to ILGA-Europe’s letter, explain the good situation of minorities in Tallinn and thus justify the unnecessary of signing such petition.

Tarmo Lausing, chairman of education and culture commission, explained that the petition seems to imply that horrible cases of discrimination of sexual minorities take place in Estonia – violence, extreme humiliation, and mistreatment.

“The commission felt that signing a petition like this would mean accepting what is not true and we would admit things which aren’t true,” explained Lausing.

“This doesn’t mean though that we don’t consider protecting the rights of sexual minorities important. Tallinn definitely protects the rights of all minorities living here today and tomorrow,” Lausing further stated.

The Deputy Mayor of Tallin, Kaia Jäppinen, noted that this petition and the stand taken towards it, would in no way harm or discredit Tallinn as a culture capital of Europe 2011, adding that, "to connect this petition with culture capital is arbitrary and inappropriate.”

■ Juris Lavrikovs is ILGA-Europe’s communications manager and Lisette Kampus is a member of ILGA-Europe executive board.

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Posted: 22 March 2008 at 01:00 (UK time)