Joe.My.God. LGBT News
RT.com reports:
Ukrainian riot police proved to be somewhat useless against a crowd of ultra-nationalists in the city of Lvov, as they failed to protect an LGBT gathering from harassment and did not arrest a single suspect after retreating from the confrontation with attackers.
Amid a court ban on public Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) events in the city of Lvov, minority activists decided to organize a private gathering in the Dnestr hotel, where a few dozen people arrived to take part in the so-called “Equality Festival.”
The organizers placed private security at the entrance to the conference hall where the festival, which close to 200 people registered to attend, was about to begin. In addition local police units reinforced the security for the closed door festival, the highlight of which was a poster exhibition dedicated to women and minority rights.
But the event never took place, as a crowd of ultra nationalist youth, few covering their faces with balaclavas, slowly but surely surrounded the Dnestr hotel demanding that authorities stop the event. “We are blocked at the hotel,” organizer Olena Shevchenko said on Facebook from the hotel. “Police don’t want to react, they are saying all those people in masks just meet their friends here.”
As the participants of the event were being boarded into buses by the officers, the ultra-nationalist group started throwing stones and firecrackers at the attendees and attempted to break through the police lines and shouting “Kill! Kill! Kill!”
Police tried to quell the mob and even chased them into a nearby park, where the attackers regrouped and began pelting stones at the police while shouting SS slogans, repeating “SS” and “Hitler Youth.”
RELATED: Hundreds of riot police responded last year to Kiev Pride after a similar attack by dozens of neo-Nazis.