Original article (in Serbian) was published on 16/09/2022
In the week of Europride in Serbia, numerous right-wing, pro-Russian and homophobic groups are distributing announcements intending to discredit the LGBT population and the “West” that supports it and to prevent the walk (Pride Parade) scheduled for September 17 in Belgrade. Thus, a photo of several Pride participants in New York was published on Twitter and Viber groups, and one of them allegedly features Volodymyr Zelensky. In just a few minutes, we found the original photo, which does not feature Zelensky, but another person – it is a photomontage in which the face of the Ukrainian president is “inserted” instead of the original face.
“Pride, New York 1999. Early works of Volodymyr Zelenskiy”, says the description of the photo showing two people at Pride, one of which is the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky.
The photo collected over 580 likes on Twitter in less than 24 hours, while it was retweeted more than 150 times. Some commented with: “What the hell did that unfortunate man have to do in his life”, and “Once a fag, always a fag”. However, some pointed out that it was a photomontage.
It took several minutes to determine that it was an edited photo, that is, that the original photo did not show Volodymyr Zelensky.
The photo can be found on Flickr, a website specialized for photos, and on the page where it is located, it is stated that it was taken on June 25, 2006, in New York, where the walk was held that day.
The original photo shows several people wearing clothing with military motifs. Volodymyr Zelensky is not among them – there is a completely different person whose face was replaced with the face of the Ukrainian president.
This week, the European Pride Week, dedicated to the fight for LGBT rights, is being held in Serbia. To prevent the walk, which is scheduled for September 17 as part of the ceremony, homophobic groups in Serbia have been publishing photos from this event from other countries for months, mostly with malicious and insulting comments and claims that homosexuality is a disease and other disinformation regarding with this population.
These are mainly groups formed by the conservative forces of society, which, as they point out, stand for the preservation of “traditional” and “family” values, and in which there are many who simultaneously support the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The European Pride Week in Serbia began on September 12. The following day the Ministry of the Interior (MUP) banned the walk scheduled for September 17 within the framework of Europride and the walk of the informal right-wing group “Antiglobalists”, which usually opposes Pride. The MUP claims that there is a risk that the safety of the participants of both events may be endangered.
Many European officials condemned the ban on holding a walk within the framework of Europride, and as reported by Radio Free Europe (RSE), the organizers of Europride yesterday submitted a new application for a walk within the framework of Europride to the competent institutions.
Europride’s coordinator Goran Miletic announced that the participants would gather even if the MUP formally bans the walk again.
“We will start symbolically in front of the Constitutional Court; an institution that has declared such parades (Pride Parades) unconstitutional four times”, said Miletic, RSE reports.
