By Ricardo Zamora
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

BELGRADE, Serbia – Serbia’s first gay-pride parade in nearly ten years ended in violence earlier this week.  Anti-gay protesters intimidated local authorities over such demonstrations since Serbia’s last gay-pride parade in 2001.  The 2001 parade ended so violently that authorities postponed the parade for nearly a decade.

A gay pride march planned last year was canceled due to fears violence.  This year, however, after incorporating the use of heavy police presence and armored vehicles, local authorities felt confident that rioters would be deterred.

Before the march, the head of the EU mission in Serbia, Vincent Degert, addressed the group of 1,000 participants surrounded by riot police and armored vehicles.

However, shortly after the march began, rioters attacked parade supporters and participants with Molotov cocktails and rocks.  Police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.  Approximately 100 rioters were arrested.  While no deaths were reported, 100 individuals, mostly police, were injured.

“The hunt has begun,” the AFP news agency reported the rioters say saying.  “Death to homosexuals.”

Boban Stojanovic of the NGO Queeria Center stated that “what happened on the street were the remains of the warmongering politics of the 1990s…and is related to a concentrated hate in this region in last 20 years.”

Politics aside, anti-gay sentiment runs deep in Serbian traditions.  Indeed, before the parade took place, the Serbian Orthodox Church condemned the demonstration and warned against violence against participants.  Belgrade’s mayor, Dragan Djilas, said the violence actually had nothing to do with traditional values, blaming the rioting instead on anti-government thugs.

“What’s going on now has nothing to do with the Pride parade.  Unfortunately there are always people who will use every opportunity to destroy their own city.  Fortunately no lives were lost – this is the most important thing,” Mr. Djilas said.

According to the BBC, “This year’s event was being seen as a test of how far the country has come from the ultra-nationalism and violence of the 1990s and on its path to EU membership.”

For more information, please see:

AFP – Serbian NGOs hail Gay Pride Amid Threats of More Violence – October 13, 2010

BBC – Scores Arrested in Belgrade After Anti-Gay Riot – October 10, 2010

ECONOMIST – Hate In Belgrade – October 10, 2010