First ever Gay Pride Parade
coming in May
The first ever Gay Pride Parade in Cyprus will be held on May 31st of this year as part of a 15 day Cyprus Pride Festival, announced gay rights organisation Accept LGBTI Cyprus according to a report by Cyprus Mail.
“This is a testament to how far Cypriot society has come on issues of inclusion and acceptance” the head of Accept, Costas Gavrielidies, told the Cyprus Mail. The parade, which will be held under the auspices of South Nicosia Mayor Constantinos Yiorkadjis, will come as a celebration for the act legalising civil partnerships, which is expected to be voted by the South Cypriot House of Representatives in April, according to Accept’s press release.
The festival will begin on May 17th, which is the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia, and will include a film festival, an art exhbition, a series of open discussions as well as an anti-homophobia and anti-bullying educational campaign with the help of the Cyprus Youth Council.
Source: lemonCY.eu
This issue is a long road, As part of the EU the south has the amend their laws accordingly, but is the Greek Cypriots in south ready for this a pride march? in my view the answer is no, as most Greeks/Greek Cypriots are traditionalist and conservative on this topic, it will a long road road of struggle for the gays in both the north and south. Like all Eastern Mediterranean countries everyone knows that Gays exist but mums the word and kept quite. Firstly Gays need to be honest with themselves first and admit to being Gay openly rather being the closet queens that they are, they need to stand up for they believe in. Like the north, the south has 1000s of gays that have married just to please their families. 100s of Gc and Tc travel to Greece and Turkey just to ,let their hair down to fun. There are 3 Bars/Clubs in Cyprus, and one being in Kyrenia the other in Larnaca and Limassol. More needs to be done on this subject by the European parliament, even though both the north and south have groups fighting for gay rights, unfortunately they do not receive any kind of funding from the E.U office unlike western Europe where they have funding for support groups.
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Hi there – do you have the dates yet for the Cyprus Gay Pride 2015? I’d like to add it to our events page at http://www.purpleroofs.com/gay-travel-events.html. 🙂
Not yet, Scott! as soon as we get the information it will be published.
The Cyprus Gay Pride 2015 is planned for 6th June, visit this website: http://www.acceptcy.org/
Thanks – just added it here: http://www.purpleroofs.com/gay-travel-events.html