Montenegro Gays Urge Families to Attend March

The fourth Pride march in the Montenegrin capital, Podgorica, will be held on Saturday with the LGBT community urging the police and prosecution to do more to punish those who attack LGBT people, their friends, family and supporters.

The NGO organizing the parade, Queer Montenegro, said that although life had become freer for the community in recent years, most LGBT persons in Montenegro still felt deprived of the right to liberty, respect and dignity.

"The majority of LGBT people are still forced to live in fear and hidden, without the support of friends, colleagues and loved ones. Many of us lack it where we most expect and need it, in our families," Kalezic said.

The organizers called all families that support and believe in equal human rights for everyone to join the Podgorica march.

Although no violence is expected during the Pride walk in Podgorica - the organizers said adequate police protection should guarantee the security of all participants - the question was still whether the country's Human Rights Minister, Mehmed Zenka, would show up.

NGOs have urged Zenka, who comes from the small ethnic Albanian minority, to show his own solidarity and the support of the state for the LGBT community.

Zenka's predecessor as Human Rights Minister, Suad Numanovic, regularly attended Pride marches in Podgorica but in 2012, the then minister, Ferhat Dinosa, who also comes from one of the Albanian parties, refused to join the walk.

Dinosa openly opposed the organization of the Pride parade and refused to chair the organizing committee, when offered to do so by the LGBT community.

Last year's Pride parade in Podgorica passed off peacefully as the 200 or so participating gays and lesbians and their...