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Belgrade LGBT Activists Plan Pride, While History of Violence Looms Large

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Belgrade Pride has a history replete with violence and disruption and yet, planning proceeds while a newly elected right-wing government struggles to form a majority in parliament

 

On June 27, members of the LGBT community in Belgrade gathered to commemorate International Pride Day. They carried banners and balloons in the street and publicized the slogan “Silence will not stop us.” A rainbow flag waved from the office of Serbia’s ombudsman, who is tasked with protecting human rights. Yet this was not Belgrade’s official Pride parade. That is scheduled for September 30-October 7 and will include, in addition to a parade, workshops, fashion shows, debates, and exhibitions. Indeed, planning for the event is in full swing.

Yet the event sits against a bleak historical backdrop. Prides in Serbia have been among the most controversial and violent in the world. In 2001, at the first Belgrade Pride, parade participants were attacked by football hooligans and right-wing groups in a terrifying display of homophobia.  Another Pride would not be planned until 2009, but that year’s event was canceled due to threats of more violence and a lack of cooperation from the police.

The parade went ahead in 2010 and was again besieged; police tasked with providing security for Pride clashed with hundreds of anti-gay protesters, who also attacked government and media facilities. And last year, the government again canceled Pride in the name of security, just 48 hours before it was scheduled to take place. So high-profile has Serbia’s Pride become that, in late 2011, a local director released the movie Parada (“The Parade”), a comedy-cum-drama in which a Serb ex-combatant from the 1990s agrees to provide security for a Pride organizer.

What will happen to Belgrade Pride 2012? Given the historical context as well as a newly elected Serbian president Tomislav Nikolić, who is more right-wing than his predecessor (he was once an ally of Slobodan Milosevic and Vojislav Seselj), it is a critical question for the LGBT community.  So I put it, along with other queries, to Boban Stojanović, a member of the Belgrade Pride Organizing Committee.

NCRM:  Did you face any protests or other backlash on June 27 when you held Pride Day events?

Stojanović: No. It was strange, most people were very positive.

NCRM: Why do you think Belgrade Pride has faced so many obstacles and threats from some people in Serbia?

Stojanović:  Because we are young democracy. We don’t have clear rules about anything, we cannot decide are we want to be pro-EU and pro-USA or pro-Russian. As a society, when we decide this [our orientation toward the world], we will have idea what to do with human rights.  Until then, we will give support to human rights but to nationalists and fundamentalists also.

Also, criminals and hooligans are connected with the state. During the 1990s, most of the politicians [today] were connected with war criminals, leaders of paramilitary troops, criminals, and narco dealers. … This is the base of hate toward LGBT in Serbia. … [People] need enemies.

NCRM: Belgrade Pride was banned by the government last year due to threats of violence. What did you, as organizers of Pride, think about this decision? How did you respond to the decision?

Stojanović:  Banning of Pride last year was the result of unstable state policy, and it just encouraged us to insist on our rights. The announcing of Belgrade Pride 2012 is more than a clear massage to this banning.

NCRM: Have government authorities and police been cooperating with the 2012 Pride organizers? Do you worry they might cancel Pride again?

Stojanović:  We don’t have a new government yet, after elections in May of this year. Tomislav Nikolic, a nationalist politician, was elected president and is still forming a new government.] But we are prepared and we will start with negotiators immediately. There are some positive things: Even though we are still a conservative society, there is some recognition about the importance of joining to EU [which requires meeting certain human rights benchmarks]. Also, because the election has passed, there is less tension than before. As for whether Pride will be banned or not, it is a state decision. We … deeply believe that Pride will happen.

NCRM: What do you think Nikolic’s election will mean for LGBT rights and issues in Serbia?

Stojanović:  Not so much. Until we have educated and professional people in important decision-making positions, things will be same. …. A general problem with Serbian institutions is some kind of pink-washing: a lot of words and promises but no concrete results. Last year, during the preparation of Pride, when some journalists asked some politicians, “Do you support Pride?” their answer was, “Violence is unacceptable.” And in 2010, an ex-minister for Human and Minority Rights, after so many meetings and big support to Pride, asked us, “Well, what exactly does the acronym ‘LGBT’ mean?”

NCRM: Are you concerned about the security of participants in the 2012 Pride? Or about how the events might affect members of the LGBT community in their daily lives? If you are concerned, what steps are being taken to protect individuals?

Stojanović:  The police have good tools to protect participants… [and] as organizers, we make a list with suggestions of how any person can increase his/her security at Pride. It is something what is standard at these events in this part of Europe. Pride is [one of] the biggest issue for LGBT people. We can speak in so many debates, round tables, but Pride can open huge public discussion about LGBT existence and rights. Pride can open discussion everywhere: in the office, classrooms, street, in families. It is good. We hope for two results: encouraging people to come out and increasing the number of people, mostly young people, who are willing to register violence.

NCRM: What is the slogan of this year’s Pride? Why was it chosen?

Stojanović:  [I will] quote one wonderful author, Marcus V. Agar, who wrote in his article: “Love, faith and hope: three universal human values that Belgrade Pride organizers hope will encourage greater positive interest in the lives, rights and issues of Serbia’s gay community. Working beneath this banner, they intend to present Pride as a meter by which to measure civil rights, freedom and democracy in the country. In an effort to move forward from last year, when Serbia’s government slammed an internationally condemned ban on a proposed parade through Belgrade, Pride chiefs have opted for a more approachable Ljubav, Vera, Nada re-brand, hopeful that people from across society will come together to encourage understanding, allay hatred and reduce prejudice of LGBT people in Serbia.”

NCRM:  Why do you think it is important to host Pride, even in the face of dangers? What are hopes for and goals of this year’s event?

Stojanović:  You know, if you look back, only those people and groups who insist on their rights get rights. It is a process. Those people who produce fears, they only want to discourage us. I deeply believe that honesty and love can erase hate. Hopes? Well, to have a nice and colorful Pride and Pride Week, a lot of encouraged people and positive energy in Belgrade. Our idea is to put human rights in focus … to become a place for all LGBT people (and those people who support them) to do whatever they want in order to promote equality for all.

 

Seyward Darby is a freelance writer currently living in Kosovo. She is working for a local human rights group on LGBT and freedom of expression projects with support from the Coca-Cola World Fund and Kirby-Simon Fellowship Program at Yale University. Her organization receives some funding from the U.S. government. 

 

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‘Huge Problem for Trump’: Joe Rogan Gushes Over Kamala Harris

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Populist podcaster Joe Rogan, the highly-influential commentator whose audience reflects a strong segment of Donald Trump’s MAGA base gushed over Vice President Kamala Harris in his latest episode.

“She’s nailing it,” exclaimed Rogan, who has 14.5 million followers on Spotify.

A “dudebro” with a predominantly male audience in the 25-44 range that spans the partisan divide, Rogan heaped praise on Harris’s team.

“They did an amazing job from the moment Biden drops out, forcing Biden to drop out, whatever they’re doing, whoever’s writing those speeches, getting her to deliver them, coaching her, she’s nailing it,” Rogan said.

READ MORE: ‘Megaphone for Hate’: Vance’s Slam of Dem ‘Rhetoric’ Backfires in ‘Streisand Effect’

“Whoever’s helping her. Whoever’s coaching her. Whoever’s the puppet master running the strings…” he said, serving up a “chef’s kiss” gesture, as NJ.com reported.

“The difference in that debate was not a difference in who’s going to have better policies, who’s going to be better for the country,” Rogan observed. “The difference in the debate, in my opinion, was who was better prepared.”

Rogan did not quite endorse Donald Trump in 2020, although he did tell listeners he would rather vote for Trump than Joe Biden.

“There’s a moment here when Rogan imitates Trump in the most cartoonish way imaginable, and that, I think, tells you a lot. For many people, Trump made them laugh at politics. But now they’re laughing at him,” remarked John Stoehr of the Editorial Board.

“This is a huge problem for Donald Trump,” commented digital marketing strategist and Obama campaign operative Tim Fullerton. “If Joe Rogan turns on him and starts praising Kamala Harris like he is here – Trump is toast.”

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Remigration’: Trump Continues Attacks on Immigrants With New Vow of Forced Deportations

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OPINION

‘Megaphone for Hate’: Vance’s Slam of Dem ‘Rhetoric’ Backfires in ‘Streisand Effect’

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Freshman U.S. Senator JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, in a speech and in a 1200-word social media post on Monday attacked Democrats for what he claimed is “rhetoric” fueling the two alleged assassination attempts on his running mate, ex-president Donald Trump. His efforts were both refuted as false and hypocritical, and served as an invitation for countless examples of how he and especially Trump have been engaging in dangerous rhetoric.

On Tuesday Vance continued his attacks, claiming he and Trump now deserve apologies because the dozens of bomb threats inflicted on Springfield, Ohio, after they both lied about immigrants stealing pets and eating them, allegedly came from overseas.

“I’m still waiting on a correction and apology from the left wing journalists,” Vance wrote on social media. “They lied about these bomb threats to silence us.”

Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWine told reporters there had been 33 bomb threats against 22 facilities in Springfield in under a week after Trump’s false claim Tuesday night. But now, without any proof, Republicans are claiming the bomb threats came from overseas, as if somehow that absolves them of any guilt for having fueled them.

READ MORE: ‘Remigration’: Trump Continues Attacks on Immigrants With New Vow of Forced Deportations

Vance admitted to CNN that the allegations, which led Donald Trump during last week’s presidential debate to lie that immigrants are “eating the cats,” and “eating the dogs,” was a story he had created to advance his agenda.

The Atlantic’s David Frum, a conservative and former Bush White House speech writer, on Tuesday wrote: “The difference: The upsetting things said by Trump and Vance are not true. The upsetting things said about Trump and Vance are true. Trump really did mount a violent coup against the Constitution. He and his relatives really did take bribes in office, including from foreign governments. He really was helped into power by Russian espionage agencies. He really did steal secret documents from the US government after his election defeat. And Vance really did, and by his own admission, intentionally “create stories” for political advantage that put residents of his state at risk of physical harm.”

Vance responded: “I’d say the most important difference is that people on your team tried to kill Donald Trump twice.”

Frum replied, “They’re going to rename the Streisand Effect after this guy.”

For those who don’t know, the “Streisand Effect” in short, is when an attempt to tamp down something leads to it being given a lot more attention.

That’s exactly what happened when Vance on Monday told Democrats to “tone down the rhetoric,” which he alleges led to the two Trump assassination attempts. He offered only one example, of a Democratic Congressman calling for Trump to be “eliminated,” from the ballot for president. A call for which he later apologized for not being clearer.

Vance’s attack led to a flood of people explaining why Donald Trump’s rhetoric is dangerous.

READ MORE: ‘Hell Isn’t Hot Enough’: Fury at Trump as More School Evacuations Follow ‘Pet-Eating’ Lies

“This isn’t easy to write, but it needs to be written,” wrote Joe Walsh, the former Republican Tea Party Congressman. “The sad truth is this: It’s not at all surprising that someone would try to kill him,” he said of Trump.

“I mean, think about it. Every day for 9yrs, he’s spewed hate, spread division, and incited violence like no other. Every day. Ever since he came down that escalator. Every day, he’s attacked this person or that person, this group or that group. In cruel, ugly ways. Every day for 9yrs he’s been hating on people and inciting violence against people. Remember earlier this year, when he actually shared a meme of a hogtied, kidnapped Joe Biden? He’s been like a juvenile delinquent who has thrown a firecracker into a crowd of people every day. Eventually, someone is going to go after that boy. Political violence must be strongly condemned. Always. It’s wrong that someone would try to kill him. Terribly wrong. But it’s not surprising. Not at all. It really isn’t. He has been the country’s megaphone for hate.”

On Monday, Walsh had noted: “In blaming Democrats’ rhetoric for the assassination attempt, Trump accuses Democrats of ‘wanting to destroy this country’ and calls Democrats ‘the enemy from within.’ Dangerous rhetoric coming from Democrats, huh?”

And conservative political commentator Charlie Sykes noted: “On the same day Ohio’s GOP guv sent state police to 17 schools in Springfield after threats of violence, the men who incited those threats are demanding that the rest of us tone down our rhetoric. This is rich. By which I mean unmitigated bullsh*t.”

RELATED: 33 Bomb Threats in Springfield Shuttered 22 Facilities in Days After Trump’s Immigrant Lie

Image via Shutterstock

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OPINION

‘Brazen Gaslighting’: JD Vance Slammed for Telling Dems ‘Tone Down the Rhetoric’

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Ohio Republican U.S. Senator JD Vance published a 1203-word diatribe Monday night filled with falsehoods and feeble hypocrisies, demanding that Democrats “tone down the rhetoric” while insisting he opposes “censorship.” Critics are accusing the GOP vice presidential nominee of hypocrisy and gaslighting the public, given his and his running mate’s lies about Haitian immigrants stealing and eating pets, and Donald Trump’s vicious attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris, which mirror what Vance is urging Democrats to not do.

“Reject censorship and you reject political violence. Embrace censorship, and you will inevitably embrace violence on its behalf,” Vance alleged in his post on X, before reaching this dramatic conclusion: “The logic of censorship leads directly to one place, for there is only one way to permanently silence a human being: put a bullet in his brain.”

That’s how Vance’s screed ended. But it began with a falsehood: “Yesterday, Donald J. Trump nearly lost his life.”

He was referring to the alleged attempted assassination on Sunday, during which a 58-year old man who voted for Trump in 2016 before publicly expressing his regret and supporting Republican Nikki Haley this year, was found by a Secret Service agent outside the perimeter of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf course, 300 to 500 feet away from the ex-president, with an AK-47. The agent shot at the suspect, who had been waiting in the bushes for about 12 hours.

“Ryan Wesley Routh did not fire any shots, never had Trump in his line of sight and sped away after an agent who spotted him shot in his direction, officials said. He was arrested in a neighboring county,” NBC South Florida reported.

RELATED: Trump Repeatedly Blames Biden, Harris for Assassination Attempt Allegedly by Another GOPer

And while this second alleged assassination attempt, once again by a GOP voter, is disturbing, Trump did not nearly lose his life anymore than he “took a bullet for democracy,” as he claimed after the first assassination attempt.

And yet Vance wrote, “The rhetoric is out of control. It nearly got Steve Scalise and many others killed a few years ago. It nearly got Donald Trump killed twice” – a clear attack on Democrats despite both alleged attempted shooters targeting Trump were his own supporters, at least at one time. As for the Scalise shooting in 2017, seven years ago, the perpetrator had a 20-year history of run-ins with the police, including an arrest “after a 2006 incident in which he was accused of beating his foster daughter, according to court records. The case crumbled after the victim decided not to testify,” Bloomberg reported. Had he been convicted he would have been unable to own a gun.

Vance also claimed that “Kamala Harris has said that ‘Democracy is on the line’ in her race against President Trump. The gunman agreed, and used the exact same phrase.”

NCRM could find no news reports making the claim Routh has said that, but you know who has? The American people.

“Americans agree that the future of democracy is on the line in the 2024 election but disagree about who poses the biggest threat,” is the headline of a December PBS News report.

“A poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 62% of adults say democracy in the U.S. could be at risk depending on who wins next fall. Majorities of Democrats (72%) and Republicans (55%) feel the same way, but for different reasons.”

Vance also promoted the claim – again, nowhere to be found in news reports NCRM could find – that, he says, “suggest [the bomb threats] came from a foreign country, not–as the media suggested–a deranged Trump fan.”

It is the same suggestion made, apparently without public proof or substance, by Ohio’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine and Attorney General Dave Yost, also citing no source.

As for the bomb threats, Governor DeWine announced Monday there had been 33 since Donald Trump and JD Vance made their wild accusations that Haitian immigrants (20,000 “illegal” migrants they falsely claimed) are stealing and eating the cats and dogs of Springfield residents. 33 affecting 22 facilities including elementary schools and hospitals that were forced to be evacuated, shuttered, or searched.

RELATED: 33 Bomb Threats in Springfield Shuttered 22 Facilities in Days After Trump’s Immigrant Lie

Somehow, Vance and the GOP are claiming that the bomb threats coming from overseas (not proven) absolve them of any guilt. It does not. The bomb threats are a direct result of Vance’s and Trump’s lies attacking immigrants, which in turn are a hallmark of Donald Trump’s political career since he came down the golden Trump Tower escalator in 2015 and told the American people their problems are being caused by Mexicans.

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best. They’re not sending you, they’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems,” Trump said on the June day when he launched his first presidential run. “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists and some, I assume, are good people.”

And while Vance is demanding Democrats “tone down the rhetoric,” he ignores the words of his running mate, Donald Trump, who just last week repeatedly called Vice President Harris “a threat to democracy,” in a speech before the Fraternal Order of Police.

Meanwhile, civil rights and national security journalist Marcy Wheeler blasted Vance’s massive social media post, calling it a “a fascist manifesto,” in which, she writes, the Ohio Senator argues “that false claims dehumanizing migrants is opinion the censorship of which will lead to violence, but Harris’ factual observations about Trump’s coup attempt is violence.”

Posting a screenshot, Wheeler sardonically remarked that his post “starts by feigning to care about incendiary speech, but ultimately says you have to let his Nazi buddies lie about Haitians eating kitties.”

Because it was a lie, a lie that Vance admitted to when he told CNN on Sunday he will “create stories” to promote his agenda: “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

National security attorney Brad Moss debunked Vance’s public remarks Monday in which the Senator claimed, “You know the big difference between conservatives and liberals is that no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple months, and two people now have tried to kill Donald Trump in the last couple of months. I’d say that’s pretty strong evidence that the left needs to tone down the rhetoric, and needs to cut this crap out.”

Former Lincoln Project executive director Fred Wellman summed up Vance’s remarks, asking, “So if I understand the new MAGA messaging correctly; quoting Trump and Vance’s actual words they have said on the record multiple times is inciting violence?”

The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson also slammed Vance, writing: “All your gifts, wasted on a dissolute con man, a rapist, serial adulterer, a bankrupt wastrel, and an eager authoritarian who has stoked more violence, hatred, division, death, and chaos than any President in modern history. You, sir, are the cause of death and bomb threats happening *this instant* in Ohio and you elide your guilt with the grace of a Harvard law grad. Spare me.”

CNN host W. Kamau Bell blasted Vance’s remarks on Monday:

“This reads like your daddy Trump yelled at you & told you to make it right. You had an all-time debacle of an interview yesterday where all you had to say was ‘I’m sorry to my home state. As an elected official it is my responsibility to fact check the things I say.’ & today more bomb threats came into the schools that your constituents send their kids to. You talk about Democratic ‘rhetoric’ like your daddy didn’t lead an attack on a the Capitol. Well, since you said we are allowed to say mean things, let me say this, you are a disgrace.”

Mother Jones national affairs editor Mark Folman added, “What brazen gaslighting from JD Vance, who literally led the way on incitement blaming Dems for the shooting in Pennsylvania — ‘They even tried to kill him’ This BS rhetoric [was] repeated by Vance and many top Trump surrogates.”

MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Scarborough Tuesday morning called Vance’s speech in which he called for Democrats to tone down the rhetoric, “gaslighting of the first order.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Remigration’: Trump Continues Attacks on Immigrants With New Vow of Forced Deportations

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