MOSCOW - Gay rights activists were pummeled by right-wing protesters and detained by police Saturday, preventing them from putting on a display of gay pride in defiance of a city ban.
Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said in a radio interview Friday gay parades "may be acceptable for some kind of progressive, in some sense, countries in the West, but it is absolutely unacceptable for Moscow, for Russia."
"As long as I am mayor, we will not permit these parades," he said.
Police detained the rally's main organizer, Nikolai Alexeyev, as he attempted to lay flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a symbol of Russia's victory against fascism in World War II, just outside the Kremlin wall.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060528/ap_on_re_eu/russia_gay_rights