#europride

thessaloniki

"Há responsabilidade criminal e patrimonial" #EuroPride Lisboa 2025: Diogo Vieira da Silva, alegado Comissário Municipal de Carlos Moedas, suspeito de desvio de dinheiro, abuso de confiança e burla

A nomeação de Diogo Vieira da Silva para a coordenação do EuroPride 2025 em Lisboa tem gerado controvérsia que agora se adensa. A nomeação, feita a convite do presidente da Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, Carlos Moedas, ocorre num momento delicado, já que Diogo Vieira da Silva está atualmente sob investigação pelo Ministério Público por suspeitas de desvio de dinheiro, abuso de confiança e…

we're here. we're queer.

i am actually embarrassed to say that i was born and raised here, in this country, in this city.

as a queer person, i'm still deathly afraid of the possibility to have something happen to me or my friends by just appearing at the wrong place at the wrong time. not to mention to all the brave and proud people here who are attending europride, both as guests, supporters and volunteers.

the only means of our legal physical protection, the country representatives and the police force, have betrayed us, rejecting to be involved in our fight for basic human rights and visibility.

So.

Basically, our war criminal Prezz is terrified of what the fash will do now that he and the Gov can't escape finally admitting that Kosovo is an independent republic and that they've just been beating a dead horse and using the Kosovo Serbs as a political token they fully intend to sell out the second it's profitable for them personally, so he's trying to appease them by cancelling EuroPride.

This potentially means a return to Pride as a protest... and all the violence that will come with it.

The first Pride was organized in 2001, after the "democratic" changes in Serbia, but it ended with a BRUTAL beating of the participants by right-wing groups, football hooligans, and cops. I thought about posting photos, but I didn't want to disturb anyone, and they're googlable.

The second Pride was planned again in 2004, but the organizers canceled it after the March Riots and the burning of mosques in Niš and Belgrade, and it won't be until 2009 that there would be another attempt. This one was blatantly sabotaged by the Government, who abruptly made the decision to move the parade to a location different from the one originally planned, applied, and approved of, effectively making it impossible to hold the event.

The first SUCCESSFUL Pride Parade was held in 2010. And by "successful," I mean nobody got beaten up during the event. However, members of numerous right-wing groups, football hooligans, and members of clergy lined the sidewalks to counter-protest, and people who took part in Pride hound themselves yelled at, threatened, spat on, had various objects thrown at them, and banners with hateful messages were visible everywhere.

In 2014, the first Pride that truly went without any incidents (although counter-protesters were still around, they were drowned out by the sheer number of Pride participants, over 1000 of them - which may not sound like a lot to you, but compared to previous attempts, it was PACKED). The following year was not only the first consecutive Pride, but the first Trans Pride event was held, too.

Pride has been held every year since (although in 2020 it was held in the digital spaces due to COVID-19), every year with new events added and more people attending. The events themselves were safe, although counter-protests keep being held and, unfortunately but predictably, a lot of people get bashed on their way home from Pride.

This year, Belgrade is supposed to be the host of EuroPride (think of it as the Olympics of Pride events in European countries), and about two months ago, serious and constantly escalating attacks on both the community and the organizers have begun to crop up, mostly from right-wing politicians (ie, almost all politicians), but also other right-wing groups and, most recently, the clergy.

I didn't talk about it much because, unfortunately, all that shit is so normalized here that if I did, I'd be talking about nothing else (and, frankly, the past two months have also been extremely difficult for me personally, too). But this shit needs to be talked about, needs to be out there, and you need to know about it from me, as for a lot of you, I'm likely the only person who lives in Serbia that you know.

All if this came at us amidst a scandal of Pride events being pay-to-enter for the first time ever (except for the parade) and a lot of people being justifiably PISSED at the organizers, who are also the leaders of the biggest LGBTQIAP+ NGO in the country, which is a whole nother can of worms that I, honestly, don't have the energy to get into (and I'm supposed to be working anyway, so I should probably bring this story to a conclusion already).

Wish us luck, everyone.

We need it.

Badly.

Significant cabinet positions in the UK are now occupied by ministers with African and Asian heritage... and yet they’re going ahead with pushing plans to violate the ECHR ruling and deport refugees to Rwanda, in the same week Chris Kaba, a young, black, aspiring architect was wrongfully shot dead by Met officers.

And it’s not just a UK-specific issue, Serbia is one of the only countries in Europe with an openly gay prime minister, but EuroPride has been cancelled because yet again the threats from the far-right are severe enough to put LGBT+ people’s safety at risk on the day, and the government is still far too wedded to conservative values to actually do anything about institutionalized homophobia.

I’m all for solidarity within minority groups, but don’t fall into a trap of assuming that those who look like you, speak like you, share your background, or experience the same kind of attraction have your best interests at heart. Money is the the single greatest insulator against prejudice, and we shouldn’t be so easily turned against potential allies on the grounds of demographics.

As a woman, I’ve found far greater solidarity with men who also know what it’s like to be poor and work minimum wage jobs than I have with #girlboss types who make six-figure salaries. As a disabled person I’ve found far greater solidarity with able-bodied folk with short-term health conditions who are ground down by the futility of relying on a crumbling free health service than I ever have with those who can afford to have everything from OT, and physio, to detailed occupational health reports done privately, even if they share my exact diagnoses. And as an LGBT+ person I’ve found far greater solidarity with straight allies who genuinely care about building a world where all forms of love are treated equally than I do with the type of high-earning white-collar gays who put ‘no fats, no femmes, no asians’ on their grindr profiles.