Serbia Police Urge Gays to Cancel Parade

Serbia's biggest police union has piled pressure on the organizers of a forthcoming Gay Pride parade in Belgrade, questioning whether police have the manpower to protect the marchers.

The union raised eyebrows by holding a joint press conference with a far-right organization, Dveri Srpske, on Thursday, where they issued a joint statement complaining about the planned march.

"We consider that holding a gay parade poses an unnecessary danger to public order and the security of property and jeaopordizes the lives of both citizens and police," the joint statement read.

Dveri has said it plans to hold an alternative march on October 2, devoted to promoting family values.

“We don’t have anything against the parade but do we really need another crisis?” the special advisor to the president of the police union, Niksa Nikodinovic, told Balkan Insight.

“Considering the country's financial crisis and the situation in Kosovo, we can’t pull out thousands of men to protect a hundred participants of the Parade,” he added.

“Last year the city of Belgrade spent 1 million euro repairing the damages after the parade,” the advisor continued.

In last year's parade, some 200 police were injured in riots as hooligans and right-wing extremists attempted to attack the marchers.

The police union is the biggest police union in Serbia, with more than 15,000 members.

Meanwhile, Ivica Dacic, the Interior Minister, went one step further than the police on Friday, saying: “It would be better if the Parade was not held.”

‘The police always pay the highest price, not only financially, but also in terms of injuries,” he added.

However, the minister cautioned that it was not up to the police to decide whether such an event should be held.

Goran Miletic, one of the organizers of the Parade, told Balkan Insight that they had no intention of backing down and calling off the march on October 2.

“I hear statements like this every day and I will probably hear them every time we have a Parade for the next 10 years,” he said.

Miletic said the Pride Parade committee had already obtained official permission from the government to go ahead.

“We also have promises from the police that they will provide security at the day of the event,” he added.

“The police are obliged by law to provide security and maintain public order at any time. It would be terrible if the police decided not to follow those rules. They are requirements in accordance with international standards.”

While the Parade is a high risk event in security terms, Serbia has little room for manoeuvre at a time when its fitness for EU candidate status is still being assessed.

Dacic confirmed that the Serbian government had recently received a letter from the European Parliament saying that they were carefully following the proceedings surrounding the Pride Parade this year.

Serbia expects official confirmation from Brussels about its EU candidacy in October.