On Sunday, April 26th, a series of single rallies, dedicated to the International Day of Silence which took place on April 25th in Russia, has been conducted in St. Petersburg. The Day of Silence is an international action of nonviolent protest, dedicated to the attracting public attention to the issue of silencing the discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and hate (homophobia) crimes.

The rally took place on the initially planned place at Bol’shaya Moskovskaya street, behind the F.M. Dostoevsky monument, in the area of house number 2, from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. 15 people participated in the single rallies in St. Petersburg, they have given out more than 500 leaflets to the passersby. In general, more than 40 representatives of LGBT community and friendly heterosexuals gathered near the F.M. Dostoevsky monument that day and supported the rallying activists with their presence.

We would remind you that initially, the rally was planned on April 25th, but the Administration of the Central District of St. Petersburg didn’t endorse it and offered to move the event to April 26th. However, the second notification application for the rally, fulfilling the conditions suggested by the Administration of the Central District itself, wasn’t endorsed as well. The formal reason for refusal to endorse the application was that another rally has supposedly been endorsed for the announced place on the stated day, April 26th.

The participants of the single rallies on April 26th didn’t observe any other rallies carried out at the stated place in the time they were there. Therefore, the actions of the Administration of the Central District can be considered as an intentional attempt to foil the event.

Given actions have to be qualified as infringement of the right of peaceful assembly, guaranteed by the article 31 of the Constitution of RF, and right to freedom of thoughts’ expression, guaranteed by the article 29.4 of the Constitution of RF and article 10 of the European human rights and general freedoms Convention.

We consider that the thematic of the rally influenced on its non-acceptance. In this relation we would like to remind you that the European Court of Human Rights specially claimed that the article 10 protects not only “information or ideas, which are met with kindness or considered as harmless and met with indifference, but also those which insult, shock or provoke anxiety from the side of the state or any part of the society. This is the requirement of pluralism, tolerance and width of views, without which democratic society doesn’t exist”.

It should be stressed that the Day of Silence in Petersburg passed with absolute silence from the mass media. This testifies to the fact that an unvoiced gender censorship still exists in Russian mass media. Consequently, the underlying idea of the Day of Silence is more than relevant for Russia.

And what are you doing to stop the silence?