Around 2,000 LGBT activists peacefully walked on Sunday from the government building to the Belgrade City Assembly in the second Pride Parade that took place in Belgrade since 2010.
Participants of the gay-march paraded through central city streets on Sunday carrying banners, posters and rainbow flags, while around 7,000 heavily armed police officers secured the event attended by Serbian high officials, ambassadors and 400 journalists.
Manifestation that started in front of the government building was attended by Michael Davenport, Chief of the European Union delegation to Serbia, U.S. ambassador Michael Kirby, ambassador of Norway Nils Ragnar Kamsvag, ambassador of the Netherlands Laurent L. Stokvis, Serbian culture minister Ivan Tasovac, Belgrade mayor Sinisa Mali.
Boban Stojanovic, president of Queeria, and one of the organizers of the Belgrade Pride Parade, told Xinhua that this year authorities supported the organizers of the Pride Parade much stronger than previous years, and that the fact becomes obvious when counting all of the meetings they had lately with Serbian high officials.
"The Pride Parade is a part of making the Serbian public more sensible towards LGBT population, and this is why there is so much police. I hope that every year we will have more people, and less police," Stojanovic said during the parade.
He added that the gay march is a "small but a definite step towards making the wider public realize the rights of the LGBT community," and that LGBT people are ordinary people, "someone's friends, relatives, children and not some kind of people from Mars."
After his speech he publicly kissed his boyfriend "in order to show to everybody that it is a normal thing to do" and his act was welcomed by applause.
Still, there are many of those that opposed to the manifestation. On Saturday around 5,000 people among which were activists of Dveri political party, Orthodox priests, football fans as well as ordinary citizens with their families gathered at the main city square on Saturday evening to protest.
"We are not fighting against the entire gay population. Our campaign is not homophobic. We think that sexual determination is one's private affair, and we are against making it public," Vladan Glisic, one of the founders of the Dveri, told Xinhua on Saturday.
"We fight against the promoters, and organizations that stand for LGBT rights, because they wish to secure for themselves a more privileged position in the society through all this," Glisic said.
However, despite the eagerness of the protesters to pressure the government to ban the Pride Parade, they were surrounded by heavy police forces and prevented from approaching the government building.
Glisic announced that, after Sunday's parade, members of the Serbian Orthodox Church and Dveri will organize a holy procession through the streets of Serbia "to purge them from evil".
Since Saturday evening great part of the city center was blocked by police forces to prevent violence. The city was almost completely empty during the parade, and police swiftly reacted on every attempt to endanger the security of the event.
Belgrade mayor Sinisa Mali told Xinhua that by making a safe Pride Parade possible in the capital of Serbia, the city presents itself to the world as an open place, where every citizen has equal rights.
"Belgrade recognizes and respects diversity. If we want to become a world class cosmopolitan city, it is something we simply have to do," Mali said.
Davenport expressed his satisfaction that Pride Parade has been organized in Serbia for the second time, after in 2010 it turned into bloodshed, due to a conflict between police and anti-gay rioters.
"This manifestation is a strong message to all those that still wish to use the hate speech or violence, that this kind of behavior is not acceptable in Serbia," he said in front of the city assembly where ambassadors and activists made speeches.
"This is a new chapter in an efficient fight against discrimination," he concluded.
EU paid tribute to the professionalism of the security forces
European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy, Štefan Füle, welcomed the decision of the Serbian government to allow the organisation of the Pride Parade. Commissioner Füle said on 28 September:
"The EU condemns extremist threats against Belgrade Parade and welcomes the decision by the Government of Serbia to allow organisation of the Pride Parade, and the consequent preparatory work done.
We pay tribute to the professionalism of the security forces, providing protection to the participants. The commitment of Serbian security forces, together with that of the parliament and prominent political representatives, in addition to that of the diplomatic community and civil society in Serbia, marked a substantial improvement towards the effective exercise of LGBTI rights, and more broadly, of human rights. It is a milestone in the modern history of democratic Serbia."