Marta @ March of tolerance, Kraków 16.05.09

On the 16^th of May I joined the annual March of Tolerance, which was the highlight of the Queer May Festival, that took place from the 15th until the 17th of May in Kraków, Poland with workshops on safe sex practices, debates on related topics like LGBT in the media, gay people in national socialism, gender in school, completed by movies on gender and queer topics and even two sport tournaments.

The demonstration gathered around 500 people, unfortunately called in media “the manifestation of gay people” or “demonstration of gay fans” (sic!) which in the Old Market Square in Kraków met their counterdemonstration of extremist right organizations called the March of Normality and March of Tradition gathering far more people then stated in the media (referring to 400), throwing eggs, tomatoes or even stones at the demonstration.

The process of registering the march has triggered an action of 22 politicians from the party PiS (Right and Justice) followed by one politician from the party PO (Platform of Citizens), which is currently running the country in a plea for stopping the march due to protection of family values and safety of citizens. Nicely countered by the current chief officer for security of the local municipality saying the city could only forbid the demonstration by breaking the law and saying, he had never seen any action on the side of the participants of the demonstration that would endanger anyone.

That is hopefully a good sign, as, like in 2005, the city council very often has not permitted the demonstration or did post factum.

Marta

Green goes pink

Hi all!

As you probably all know, today is IDAHO, the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. FYEG got a press release out on Saturday stating that according to the Young Greens, diversity in all its appearances should be celebrated and that Human Rights violation against LGBTQI people is unacceptable. 

That same Saturday, on the 16^th of May, I joined Ecolo (j) and (Jong) Groen together with Battal and Bruno at the Gaypride in Brussels to make a statement on anti-discrimination and equal rights.

It was nice weather, with about 16 degrees and no rain during the parade. There were several prominent Greens and candidates for the European Parliament present, among them Evelyne Huytebroeck and Isabelle Durant. There was a very positive and celebrative atmosphere and I really enjoyed the pride! Also, I am very proud that we as Greens were so well represented during the Brussels pride. There was a large group of Greens present and of course also the Young Greens were represented and very present.

As you can see in the pictures, there was a large group bicycle by which we moved through Brussels. In the mean time we drank organic wine, brewed from flowers and syrup which tasted really well! And as you can also see in the pictures, Ecolo and Groen brought a whole bunch of tattoos with a heart in rainbow colours. People will be making green statements for quite a couple of days probably, since I found out that it is very difficult to wash them off…