A controversial Ukrainian lawmaker, Ihor Mosiychuk, filed a lawsuit to ban an upcoming Equality March event in the capital by KyivPride, an LGBTQ organization. Mosiychuk filed the legal motion with the Kyiv District Administrative Court on June 5 and also tried to do same last year.
“The plaintiff asks to recognize as unlawful the inaction of Kyiv City Administration in not imposing a prohibition action on the June 23 ‘KyivPride’ Equality March and asks the court to rule on the prohibition of its conduction,” the Kyiv District Administrative Court reported on June 7.
The court will now decide whether to open proceedings on Mosiychuk’s administrative lawsuit.
Appealing to what he called Christian values, Mosiychuk, a former member of the Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko, announced on Facebook that he filed the lawsuit “with God’s help” on June 6.
“Court ban of the gay parade will not only morally protect small Ukrainians from the influence of perverts and degenerates, but will also protect them themselves from angry traditionalists!” Mosiychuk wrote.
Sofiia Lapina, media relations coordinator at KyivPride said that the organization is not concerned with Mosiychuk’s lawsuit. They believe that Ukraine’s judiciary will protect their right to peaceful assembly, which is guaranteed under Article 39 of Ukraine’s Constitution. They say Mosiychuk intends to infringe upon that freedom.
“When mister Mosiychuk appeals to Christianity or any other religion, we have to remember that… the Constitution of Ukraine doesn’t have an official religion legally secured over each citizen. We have complete freedom to practice any religion or not to practice any,” Lapina told the Kyiv Post on June 8.
In his Facebook post, Mosiychuk used what most would consider to be hate speech in his description of people from the LGBTQ community, branding them “perverts, degenerates and genetic garbage.”
“No to marches and rabbles of perverts, degenerates and genetic garbage in our Golden-domed Kyiv!” Mosiychuk commented, prompting outrage but also support on social media.
“It’s quite unfortunate that mister Mosiychuk defames the face of authorities and governing bodies in our country this way. Because such hate language is unacceptable in a modern European state,” Lapina said .
Although Ukraine does not have a separate law on the use of hate language, it has ratified the European Convention on Human Rights in 1997. Article 10 of the Convention stated that freedom of expression can face limits when it comes to language that constitutes hate speech.
It is not clear if Mosiychuk will face legal consequences for his anti-LGBTQ comments.
Mosiychuk has previous with anti-LGBTQ actions. He filed a similar lawsuit to the same court two days before the Equality March last year. LGBTQ activist and KyivPride co-founder Zoryan Kis says that Mosiychuk retracted that lawsuit.
“Last year there was a similar lawsuit, although two days before the March. They filed it, publicized themselves, and then quietly taken it back in order not to lose the case,” Kis wrote on his Facebook.
The 2018 Equality March organized by KyivPride in the capital was mostly peaceful, had protection from the authorities and attracted about 3,500 participants on June 17, 2018.
Mosiychuk is known for launching controversial lawsuits. In February, the Kyiv District Administrative Court tried to ban Ukraine’s acting health minister Ulana Suprun from exercising her powers. This way the court satisfied a lawsuit by Mosiychuk accusing Suprun of incompetence. The Court cancelled its ruling a week later.
