EuroPride Organizers Submit Petition for March to Gov't, Civil Sector Voices Support

Belgrade Pride 2021 (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV/DS)

The organizers of EuroPride on Sept. 16 handed over to the government a petition containing 27,000 citizens' signatures, asking Prime Minister Ana Brnabic and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic to, "in line with their authority and powers," enable a march of LGBT activists to take place in downtown Belgrade on Sept. 17.

EuroPride coordinator Goran Miletic told reporters that they had again applied with the Interior Ministry for the march to take place, "so that everything is put back into a legal framework." "We insist that EuroPride be held in the format we have foreseen. We will gather where we said [we would], it will be a protest march, slightly different than in previous years," said Miletic.

He announced that participants would "symbolically" start their march outside the building of the Constitutional Court, as an institution that has, in his words, declared decisions to ban the Pride Parade unconstitutional four times in the past. "We will move down Bulevar Kralja Aleksandra street, Ilije Garasanina Street, to the entrance to Tasmajdan Park. A concert will take place there from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m.," said Miletic.

Forty-five civil society organizations have backed EuroPride, calling on state institutions in a joint letter to enable members of the LGBTIQ+ community to exercise their right to assembly.