North Macedonia’s Church Protests Gender-Related Laws

Thousands of people are expected to attend a big Church-organised protest in Skopje on Thursday as the country's biggest religious community, the Macedonian Orthodox Church, called on the government to shelve adoption of the Gender Equality Law and the Law on Birth Registry.

The Church insists that if they are adopted, the two laws would "open a Pandora's box" from which "different genders could emerge every day".

The call for the protest, the first such organised directly by the Church, came on Friday, straight from the Church's head bishop.

Archbishop Stefan insisted their objections had been ignored and that the new provisions would harm "all citizens and especially women and children".

It came just a day before Saturday's Skopje Pride, which this year is held under the slogan "Lound and Proud", amid a heating-up of Church resistance to the legal provisions that have been in the works for about a year.

While the Church insists that it is receiving support for its protest from other religious communities in the country and from public figures, including singers and performers, the Platform for Gender Equality and the Network Against Discrimination, both umbrella human rights organisations, condemned the call for the protest, insisting it is not the Church's place to interfere in individual human rights.

The Helsinki Committee for Human Rights on Wednesday issued safety guideline for LGBT people, advising them to steer clear of the protest in the city near the government HQ.

The biggest opponenent of these provisions over the past year has been Bishop Jakov Stobiski of Strumica.

On Monday, North Macedonia's Anti-Discrimination Commission ordered Stobiski to apologize publicly to LGBT individuals for...