On the 23th of March in the office of the historic-educational human rights non-government organization “Memorial” in Saint-Petersburg there was a commemoration meeting of gay and lesbians – the victims of political repressions. As experts and guests were invited the Director of research-and-development center “Memorial” Irina Flige, the president of “Memorial” Sergey Hahaev, the cofounder of “Memorial” Tatjana Kosinova, the president of the society “The Positive Dialog” Nikolaj Panchenko, the poet Olga Krause and the president of Russian LGBT Network Igor Petrov.
The main theme of the discussion: is it possible to consider the victims of the 121 asset to be victim of political repressions and is it important to achieve the official rehabilitation. The experts agreed that the rehabilitation is necessary and important. The asset officially doesn’t exist, but the repressions are proceeding, said Igor Petrov. The swoops of the police on the gay clubs “Central Station” and “Bunker” in October of 2008 are like the raids of the time of Soviet Union, which were described by the eyewitness Nikolaj Panchenko. The mentality of the law enforcements still has the remains of the asset, and without the recognition of the government that this asset was unjust and illegal the LGBT-community cannot feel itself safe. The official rehabilitation could also serve as a protection from the adoption of such discrimination law in future. 
The meeting took lace in the frames of the Russian week against homophobia, which is under way from 23th to 31st of March on the initiative of Russian LGBT Network. In Saint-Petersburg all the events are organized by the LGBT-society “Coming Out”.
Contacts 
Official web-site http://rwaho.lgbtnet.ru
Contact person: Igor Petrov
Phone/fax. +78123139369