No Free Speech in Russia

Gays and lesbians are deprived of basic human rights in many places around the world. Russia is of these places. Today, peaceful people who tried to present a petition denouncing a decision to bar a gay pride parade in Moscow were assaulted by a hostile crowd of Christians and fascists. When the police arrived, they did nothing to stop the aggressors. Instead, they arrested the peaceful demonstrators. This is exactly what the Moscow police did a year ago. From 365gay.com:

Among those detained were gay rights leader Nikolai Alexeyev and a number of foreign supporters including British gay advocate Peter Tatchell and two reportedly two European lawmakers.

They and about 100 other people gathered in a park across from the office of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov to collect signatures for the petition which already had been signed by about 40 members of the European Parliament.

Waiting for them were members of extreme right nationalist groups, Russian Orthodox churchgoers, and young militants.

The crowd pelted the gay group with eggs and started a number of skirmishes until police moved in arresting the gay leaders.

Once again the politicised Christians have proved to be no better than their Islamist counterparts.

One thing that always makes me furious about these things is the silence from liberals and libertarians. When Åke Green was sentenced to a month in prison after a homophobic speech, liberal-minded human-rights activists from around the world protested against the Swedish law that prohibited anti-gay bible preaching. And rightfully so, free speech is a fundamental human right. (I wrote about it here.) But just because free speech is a fundamental right, it seems odd to me that so few protest when gays are silenced. To me is seems as if many liberals and libertarians are too convenient with the conservative misuse of arguments against political correctness. The proper objection to political correctness has to do with protection of universal free speech. Conservatives tend to refer to something altogether different. To them, the opposition to political correctness has to do with an ambition to science anyone proposing radical change to society.