POLAND: GAY TOLERANCE MARCH IN CRACOW UNDER THREAT OF VIOLENT ATTACK

The third annual Festival of Culture for Tolerance in Cracow, Poland, and its Gay Pride March, scheduled for April 28, will take place in a climate of fear and apprehension of physical attacks, the French gay monthly Tetu reports today in its on-line daily news bulletin. "Two years ago," Tetu reports, "the festival was the target of multiple administrative attacks by city authorities and decried by the media -- and it's Gay Pride March was violently attacked by an organized crowd of homophobic thugs. Last year, the Gay Pride March was canceled because of the national day of morning decreed by the government after the death of Pope John Paul II."

This year, Tetu continues, "On April 20 the organizers had to cancel (temporarily, they hope" a conference on sexual minorities, because the location where the conference was to have been held -- the Graduate School of Management and Finance, which had previously been open to LGBT events -- asked the festival organizers to cancel the conference there. So, just a week before the Tolerance Festival opens, the organizers are desperately looking for a venue in which to hold the conference. which is not easy in a city engulfed by a strong climate of homophobia and conservatism."

"Moreover, the organizers of the Tolerance Festival and the Gay Pride March have just learned that the city of Cracow has officially authorized a March for Tradition and Culture, organized by the Polish League of Families, an ultra-right-wing political party one of whose main ideological crusades is violent homophobia, and their March is to terminate in the central square of historic Cracow -- the same place where the Gay Pride March for Tolerance is to take place. It is legitimate to believe that when these two demonstrations meet, they could terminate in violence. Two years ago, the attacks against the Gay Pride March were led by thugs from the League of Families. All this is happening in a tense climate--in these last days, the walls of the city have covered with posters reading 'Stop Homosexuality!' The posters were produced  by an association close to the League of Families." You can read a full program and schedule for the Festival, in English, by clicking here.