Serbian Gay Rights Activists Celebrated Sunday’s Pride Parade As Far-Right Extremists Threaten “Bloodbath”

Serbia’s Interior Minister, Ivica Dacic said Wednesday that the government will continue to crush the rise of far-right nationalist groups who are attempting to destabilize the Balkan county’s pro-Western government, telling that Associated Press that the antigay rioted and the fans who disrupted a soccer match against Italy Tuesday belong to the same extremist organization. Dacic said “They have various goals and are looking for various reasons for violence. The state must react to protect public peace. Now all depends on the judiciary. More than 150 people sustained injuries Sunday in Belgrade during an ongoing battle between police and thousands of far-right demonstrators trying to disrupt a gay pride parade by hurling firebombs and stun grenades. To date, almost 250 people have been arrested, 66 remaining in custody as a pre-trial detention. On Tuesday, an Italy-Serbian European championship qualifying game was suspended in Italy when Serbian thugs threw flares and fireworks onto the field, burned flags, and broke through barriers. Wednesday, the most prominent of the Serbian extremists, the Dveri group, released a statement demanding that those arrested after a weekend of rioting be released, warning of a “bloodbath” if the government failed to comply, stating “Serbia is on the verge of a civil unrest, we are facing serious social problems when people will come out in the streets who will be more serious and much more determined.” That statement arrived as gay rights activists in Serbia were celebrating the staging of Sunday’s pride parade as well as the extraordinary efforts by authorities to police the protestors and protect the participants. According to the Associated Foreign Press, Lazar Pavlovic, one of the parade organizers said “There is no way back any more. Sunday’s gay parade was a milestone and in time we will see that it was an historic event,” adding “The state has clearly taken the stand of defending human rights and European values.” However, Boban Stojanovic, of the gay non-governmental organization Queeria Centre suggested that Sunday’s violence was a return to a time when hard-line nationalist Slobodan Milosevic was in power, Stojanovic saying “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 the last 20 years.”