Russian gays express their outrage and consider legal actions
Russian Muslims can arrange serious protest actions if representatives of sexual minorities try to stage a gay parade later in May, according to Interfax news agency.
‘Protests of Muslims can be even sharper than those abroad against scandalous cartoons’, supreme mufti of the Central Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims of the country Talgat Tajuddin told Interfax on Tuesday.
‘The parade should be allowed in no circumstances. If they go into the streets, they should be thrashed. All normal people will do it, both Muslims and the Orthodox’, the mufti thinks.
He noted that representatives of sex minorities ‘could do whatever they like at home or in any secluded place. However, if they go into the streets and start campaigning, society should isolate them so that young people do not follow them’.
Tajuddin is against gays’ idea to claim their rights by public actions. ‘They have no rights whatsoever as they overstepped the bounds of decency. Untraditional orientation is considered a crime against God’, the mufti said.
He added that Prophet Muhammad had ordered to kill homosexuals, as ‘their behavior leads to the end of human race’.
‘This is neither a democracy, nor an anarchy. This is the end of history. This is abhorrent to God and man’, Tajuddin underscored.
According to the Russian independent radio station “Echo Moskvy” such statements by mufti alarmed even normally very conservative spiritual Muslim leaders. Nafigul Ashirov, head of Spiritual Directorate of Muslims responsible for Asian part of the country said that muslims are categorically against the conduct of gay parades but noone will use violence.
He said that “gay parades should not have their place in the lives of normal people. The patriarch of Orthodox Church said that today continues the campaign to pervert Russian nation, we join this statement and think that it is spiritual aggression”.
He added: “but I don’t think we have the right to thrash someone or kill, such things are not acceptable because it will be outside the scope of law. We just express the non acceptance of such actions”.
Ashirov said that “we are categorically against the conduct of gay parade but if Moscow authorities allow it then we will have nothing than to feel sorry for that. We will not go against the law, we will act by words and our personal example”.
Nikolai Alekseev, head of GayRussia.Ru and one of the organizers of Moscow LGBT festival expressed his outrage at what he heard today. He said that “position of Talgat Tajuddin is unacceptable. We have never heard yet so strong words of hatred towards sexual minorities from influential public figures. He said that we have no rights, appealed to violent actions and even to killings of gays. And what is terrible is that he used the current situation in the world, connected with the publication of caricatures, to incite hatred towards those who have absolutely no connection to that. He actually invited to the acts of vandalism which we see these days in Muslim countries against diplomatic missions of foreign countries”. Nikolai Alekseev said that “we will do the legal analyses of mufti’s statements and will take a decision concerning the application to the General Prosecutor”.
Nikolai Alekseev also said that “today I was contacted by many Russian journalists and some of them told me that there is an atmosphere of outrage in their offices at what the religious leaders said. Even those who are not so tolerant towards gays said that it is outrageous to hear such words in a democratic country”.
GayRussia.Ru
