Poland prepares for EuroPride gay rights rally
(WARSAW) - Thousands of gay rights campaigners are expected to flock to the Polish capital Warsaw for a landmark European gay rights rally, city hall said Tuesday.
Saturday's "EuroPride" is the first to be held behind the former Iron Curtain, two decades after the collapse of communism and in the face of what campaigners say is entrenched prejudice against homosexuals in the region.
"Fifteen thousand people are set to participate in the event, according to an application presented to the authorities," Magdalena Lan from Warsaw city hall told AFP.
"Two counter-demonstrations have also been announced. The parade will be overseen by police, as required by the law," Lan added.
Last year's EuroPride was held in the Swiss city of Zurich.
This year's edition has sparked controversy in deeply-Catholic Poland -- where members of the gay community have long said they face intolerance, and openly homophobic remarks by politicians are far from rare.
"We started lobbying already in 2005 against all odds and amid a very unfriendly atmosphere towards gay rights in our country," said Adam Biskupiak of the Equality Foundation, the Polish group which is organising the rally.
Poland's late conservative president Lech Kaczynski -- who died in a plane crash in April -- banned a gay rights rally by local campaigners in 2005 when he was mayor of Warsaw.
He later fell foul of the European Court of Human Rights for that decision.
Subsequent rallies in Poland have gone ahead, with a heavy police presence to keep marchers and counter-demonstrators apart.
The rallies have been relatively low-key, missing the carnival floats and drag queens often seen at their western European editions, and instead focusing on basic rights issues.
Biskupiak said he regretted that Warsaw city hall had not been involved actively in organising the rally.
Campaigner Krzysztof Legierski told the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza that the main aim of Warsaw's EuroPride was to inform Poles about the gay community.
Gay March