Government of the Republic of Serbia
The eight Pride Parade under the slogan “Say yes” was held in Belgrade on 16 September. It went by without incident and, according to media estimates, there were fewer police officers guarding the event than in previous years.
Pride organisers once again asked for the increased governmental accountability with regard to the protection of human rights of sexual minorities and penalization of violence and hate crimes against the LGBTI population.
Serbia’s LGBTI community is also supporting the objective media coverage on issues involving their community such as education system reform, sanctions against peer violence as a result of a victim’s sexual orientation and gender identity, and the elimination of discriminatory content from school textbooks.
Jelena Vasiljević of the Labris organisation said at an international conference ahead of this year’s Pride, that her group had prepared a draft law on registered partnerships back in 2011. She added that they had recently formed a new working group which will work on improving the content of this draft law and that they plan to present it to government representatives within the next month.
Several hundred people walked the streets of Belgrade participating in the Pride Parade, among them there were also government officials, Prime Minister Ana Brnabić, a member of the LGBTI community, the Ministers of Public Administration and Local Self-government, the Minister of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs, the Mayor of Belgrade, Commissioner for Protection of Equality; as well as other high ranking officials Ambassadors of France, Italy, United States of America, the Head of the EU Delegation to Serbia…
This was the second Pride Parade held this year – the first was held on 23 June, as the main event of the Pride Month, which is marked worldwide in June in remembrance of the Stonewall riots. The organisers of this year’s first Pride asked for the establishment of the legal framework which will enable trans* individuals to be legally visible, they also asked for the establishment of law which would regulate same-sex marriages, as well as the creation of an HIV / AIDS prevention system.
Source: EURACTIV.rs
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