11 Oct 2010

Anti-gay riot erupts in Belgrade

1:55 pm on 11 October 2010

Anti-gay protestors clashed with police protecting a gay rights parade in Belgrade on Sunday, rioting and attacking the headquarters of the ruling parties.

In the worst violence in the Serbian capital in over two years, more than 110 police were injured in pitched battles with gangs of nationalists and skinheads.

Pushed back from the parade area by 5,000 police in riot gear, protesters turned to other targets, breaking into the lobby of the state television network, scaling scaffolding to try to enter Parliament, smashing windows at the Austrian embassy and burning a car in front of the French embassy.

Firefighters extinguished a blaze at the headquarters of the Democratic Party of President Boris Tadic and the premises of their coalition partner, the Socialist Party, were also attacked.

Defence Minister Dragan Sutanovac called it a "really sad day for Serbia" and Mr Tadic vowed to bring the people behind the violence to justice.

The clashes highlighted the intolerance that still pervades Serbian society a decade after the country ousted Slobodan Milosevic, following the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

The parade, the first of its kind in Belgrade in nearly a decade, had been seen as a test of Serbia's readiness to become a more modern, open society after years of conflict fuelled by ethnic hatred.