Russian police detain gays_2416

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Hundreds of riot police lined Tverskaya street in central Moscow and plain-clothes police mingled with a large number of foreign and Russian journalists.
When asked about gay parades,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, President Vladimir Putin quipped in February  his approach to sexual minorities is guided by Russia demographic problems.
"It has been shown once again today that human rights are systematically abused in Putin's Russia,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login," she said in a statement. Beck was later released.
"We are defending our rights," said a young gay man named Alexey,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, with blood pouring from his nose after he was beaten up by a man screaming "homosexuals are perverts" opposite the mayor's office. His attacker was detained.
"This is terrible but I am not scared. This is a pretty scary place, a pretty scary country if you are gay. But we won't give up until they allow us our rights," he said.
Parade organiser Nikolai Alexeyev said by telephone from a police station about 30 gay activists had been detained. A police spokesman said 31 people were detained.
Marco Cappato, an Italian member of the EU parliament, was also detained at the protest but later released.
Two European parliamentarians were among those held as they tried to present a petition asking Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who has called gay marches satanic acts, to lift a ban on the parade.
Richard Fairbrass,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, a gay singer with the British pop group Right Said Fred, was punched in the face and kicked by anti-gay activists while speaking to Reuters in an interview.
Russian nationalists shouting "death to homosexuals" have punched and kicked demonstrators calling for the right to hold a Gay Pride parade in central Moscow while riot police detained dozens of gay protesters.
Russia decriminalised homosexuality in 1993 but tolerance is not widespread.
One man holding a crucifix threatened to beat up any gay person he saw.
Nationalists and extreme Russian Orthodox believers held icons and denounced homosexuality while a group of thick-set young men turned up with surgeon's masks, which they said would protect them from the "gay disease".
"We believe these perverts should not be allowed to march on the streets of Moscow, the third Rome, a holy city for all Russians," said Igor Miroshnichenko, who said he was an Orthodox believer who had come to support the riot police. "It (homosexuality) is satanic."
Volker Beck, a German Green Party politician, was hit in the face with eggs before being detained by riot police. "We didn't do anything," he told Reuters as he was led away.
"We understand this is a gay event and so we came down here today," Fairbrass said before being hit. Blood dripped from his face after the attack.
"We are sitting in the police station right now. We were detained outside the mayor's office when we tried to present the petition," said Alexeyev. "They are keeping us in the cells overnight and we will be in court tomorrow."
Germany's Green Party chairwoman, Claudia Roth, called on German Chancellor Angela Merkel to raise the issue of rights with Putin at next month's Group of Eight summit.
Russian police detain gays