About 2,000 people took part in an annual Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem on Thursday, which passed without major incident even though it had been the focus of violent controversy in the past.
Surrounded by about the same number of police, the marchers set off for the kilometer-long parade in central Jerusalem, holding aloft rainbow banners.
“We want this parade to go ahead without violence,” said Yonathan Leibowicz, of the Jerusalem Open House organization that organized the event.
“We reached an agreement with religious authorities to have a low-key demonstration so as not to shock people,” he said.
At a counter-protest in one of Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, several hundred men gathered wearing ash on their foreheads and burlap sacks over their black suits in a ritual of repentance.
Some demonstrators held holy books, rocked back and forth and prayed, while others raised banners in English reading “Shame,” “The Supreme Court is destroying the Holy City” and “Don’t sodomize Jerusalem.”
The leader of the defiantly secular Meretz party, Haim Oron, joined the parade.
“I came to support the demonstrators and to associate myself with their aims — their struggle is not just about the gay community, it’s about having a pluralist society in Israel,” he said.
Security forces were out in force but kept a discreet presence on the edge of the parade.
Israel’s Supreme Court earlier this week rejected a petition by a group of hardline Jewish activists ,who wanted the parade banned and said it was a “provocation” to hold it in the deeply religious city.
In 2005, an ultra-Orthodox Jew stabbed three participants and was subsequently sentenced to 12 years in prison.
The following year the venue was switched to a sports stadium following violent protests by ultra-Orthodox Jews and rightwing opponents who consider the event “a profanity” of the Holy City.
“The violence and intimidation surrounding Pride 2005 and 2006 only serves as proof that we must assure that our rights as citizens of Jerusalem are defended,” Open House said in a statement.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in