Organizers of last year’s gay Pride Parade are warning that the atmosphere of hatred toward the LGBT community is stirring up again

Belgrade, May, 18. 2010 (Serbia Today) - Organizers of last year’s gay Pride Parade are warning that the atmosphere of hatred toward the LGBT community is stirring up again, especially, as they say with the scenario of “planting false news. The announcement from the organizers said in Belgrade on Tuesday that already tested instruments for spreading false information were activated similar to what happened last year, when the parade was in the end canceled to security concerns. Earlier this week, it was announced that the Pride Parade would be held on September 19 in Belgrade, organized by the LGBT Forum Serbia, but the representatives of all relevant gay NGOs in Serbia claim that organization does not even exist. Members of Pride Parade 2009 organizing committee said that this was in fact a web page launched last year when the organization of the parade, which was scheduled for September 20, entered its most delicate phase. The site’s content was completely identical to the content of the Pride Parade’s official web page and the address was almost identical, in order to mislead the public that it was the official source of information. “Several days before the Pride Parade (last year) disinformation that the gathering would begin with the burning of the Republic of Serbia’s state flag was released on that fake website. Conservative centers of power wanted to additionally heighten tensions and increase threats of extreme-rightist groups in this way, which eventually led to the capitulation of the state authorities when they banned the Pride Parade in the scheduled location,” the announcement said. They also point out that the phantom organization LGBT Forum Serbia announced the flag burning again in its statement on Monday. The organizers conclude that will be taken all legal measures in this case.