Gay Homeland Foundation

Gay Homeland Foundation

15 November 2006


- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -


PRESS RELEASE ON THE DISRUPTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL LGBT CULTURE AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE REPUBLIC OF BELARUS


Gay Homeland Foundation is seriously concerned about the current situation of gay residents of Belarus. On 8th November 2006 the special police forces broke into the apartment in Gomel where the meeting of Organizing Committee of the International LGBT Conference took place and arrested seven people. The Conference materials have been seized and the organizers have been brought to the Zheleznodorozhnyi Borrow Police Department and interrogated. Although no criminal charges were brought against the then released activists, the conference had to be cancelled.

These actions of Belarussian authorities are clearly motivated by anti-gay bias and prejudice.

At the United Nations General Assembly on 26 September 2006, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus Sergei Martynov has stated that:

„There are no clever and foolish, superior and inferior, righteous and vicious peoples and religions. There are just people of the planet who are equally eager for happiness, simple and worthy.“

The Gay Homeland Foundation invites the government of the Republic of Belarus to adhere to their expressed opinions on necessity of respect towards all peoples without bias. The Gay Homeland Foundation thus urges the authorities of the Republic of Belarus to secure the cultural and political rights of gay residents of Belarus. The gay residents of Belarus deserve the unrestricted right to gather in private and in public without weapons as well as the right to form organizations for pursuing their cultural needs and rights as citizens.

Gay Homeland Foundation hopes that the authorities of the Republic of Belarus will abstain from any oppressive activities against gay residents of Belarus in the future.


Ron Bila, Viktor Zimmermann

Gay Homeland Foundation

www.gayhomeland.org


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