Dear friends!

Today, April 5, started the Week Against Homophobia. This year our campaign involvs 17 cities (Vologda, Izhevsk, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, Saint Petersburg, Tyumen, Petrozavodsk, Arkhangelsk, Voronezh, Omsk, Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Moscow, Tomsk, Kemerovo, Kazan, Chelyabinsk, Kaliningrad). This is the largest number of participants since 2007. Attention of the mass media this year is also unprecedented - even before the week we got so many publications, as there was at the end of previous campaigns. For the first time in the preparation of the Week Against Homophobia evolved the initiative groups of LGBT activists in such cities as: Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Voronezh, Samara, Yekaterinburg, Vologda.
Unfortunately we already knew the facts of psychological pressure on our activists. In the article of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy’s newspaper offensive content appeared. Article contains pornographic illustrations. Moreover, the author has personally called the coordinator of the initiative group and insulted her. We monitor this situation and will take adequate measures.
Above all the guys in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky need now moral support. It will be great if you can support them by writing a few words for Kamchatka group of the Week Against Homophobia on the web-site Vkontakte.ru (http://vkontakte.ru/club16828604), or expressing your attitude to the homophobic publication in the newspaper’s website (http://www.kamcity.ru/no-pasaran.html and http://www.kamcity.ru/no-pasaran.html)

Thank you in advance and good luck to us all!

Sincerely,
Igor Kochetkov (Petrov)
Director of LGBT organizations “Coming Out” and the chairman of the Russian LGBT Network