Kristi Pinderi, an LGBTI activist, told for Historia Ime: “We had two options, one was to go towards the artificial lake and end up at the zoo or option number two, to stay at home. We chose a third option, to continue with our plan, because the LGBTI community can’t hide all its life”.

This year’s message was “The Time of Promises is Over” by means of which activists demanded that concrete actions against discrimination of the LGBTI community in Albania are taken.

Xheni Karaj, activist for the rights of the LGBTI community, told to Historia Ime that this is not a party, but a protest. “Our Parade is not for fun but is a political action. A political action that this year wants to show people that the time of promises is over and that the time has come for concrete results,” said Karaj.

During the ride, the activists stopped also in front of the Albanian Parliament, seeking equality and dignity in society. “Today, we come out as aware citizens of this country to raise our voice against any kind of injustice and to seek equality and dignity in this society, which has not been done so far by this Parliament,” said Bora Mema, activist of the “Për Universitetin” movement.

As never before, in the LGBT parade, the majority of the participants were Albanians.

Historia Ime

The Tirana Gay (p)Ride was held again for the 5^th consecutive year. Hundreds of campaigners and supporters from the LGBT community joined together for a bicycle-powered pride event that took place across the city. As well as raising awareness of various LGBT issues the event, organized by Aleancia LGBT and Pro LGBT, hoped to tackle attitudes and stigma that contribute to marginalization of the LGBT community.

Also in the city, the Swedish Embassy to Albania held a public film screening on the evening of May 17.

Throughout the week of IDAHOT, Pink Embassy, alongside OMSA and the Human Rights House Albania, held the country’s 6^th annual IDAHOT festival. The event took place from May 16 – 20 and featured a range of events focused on tackling discrimination and various issues faced by the LGBT community.

Also in Tirana, the Swedish Embassy will host a free screening of the film ‘Just A Normal Person’ to mark IDAHOT 2016.

To mark the day once more Pink Embassy, alongside OMSA and the Human Rights House Albania, will host the 6th annual IDAHOT festival. The event will take place from May 16 – 20 and will feature a number of events focused on tacking discrimination and other issues faced by the LGBT community.

For more information on this event please visit the group’s Facebook page.

For further news and updates please follow our Facebook page. 

They protested for the domestic violence which LGBTI people are facing every day and they demanded to the Prime Minister Edi Rama to keep his promises.  Foreign ambassadors showed up at the event but a part of the Ombudsman and Commissioner for Anti Discrimination no one from the government was present.

“We were only 12 people who challenged the discrimination and fear in 2012 and now we are hundreds”, said Kristi Pinderi, activist. He added: “We know we are thousand and we protest today also on behalf of those who cannot be here, but who is missing is our Prime Minister Edi Rama and the leader of the opposition Lulzim Basha who know very well to give promises but they always fail to keep them”.

Xheni Karaj, LGBTI activist said: “We protest today against every injustice people are forced to face in this country. We protest also for the Roma Community, also for people with disabilities, also for women who are violated and killed every day”.

Supported by Ecovolis, a large environmental group in the country, the participants in this joyful protest asked to the Police not to block the traffic. They respected all street signs in respect for every citizen not causing any problem with the traffic.

Holding a 12 meters long LGBTI flag they than marched back in front of the prime minister office. The activists reminded him: “You promised us you were going to vote for a partnership legalisation but you haven’t done it yet, you also promised you were going to be on our side in the long process of educating and emancipating the society, which you never did”.

In there banners was written: “It is Ok to be Gay”, “Ride with Pride”, “We demand equal rights not special rights”, “Yes, I support LGBTI rights, No, I am not gay”, etc.

One day ago the most important LGBTI organizations in the country, Aleanca LGBT and ProLGBT successfully organized a charity event. All money raised will go to support STREHA the first residential shelter in the whole region for LGBTI young people (age 18-25).

Photo by Eriona Cami HERE:

http://historia-ime.com/2015/05/17/hundreds-at-the-4th-lgbti-pride-event-in-tirana-the-activists-ask-the-prime-minister-to-keep-his-promises-photos/

The campaign has been launched by PINK Embassy Albania to mark the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. They took inspiration, again, from the global theme of this year’s IDAHOT to produce a poster focuses on youth issues. It will be soon accompanied with a press release which puts emphasis on the challenges and difficulties that young LGBTI people in Albania face such as bullying in school, eviction from home, substance abuse, internalized homophobia etc.

Meanwhile throughout May members of the PINK team travelled across Albania to give open lectures at public universities on subjects related to discrimination and LGBT equality.

You can find the full programme of talks and discussions on the Albania- IDAHOT programme

Tirana Bike (P)ride

The Alliance Against Discrimination and ProLGBT the two major LGBTI organizations in Albania invited everyone to the Tirana Gay Ride which turned out a great success with hundreds of participants.
This is the 4th consecutive year that human rights activists and their allies organize this public event in the center of Tirana.

The objectives for this year were:

- For all of those young LGBTI who are forced to leave their homes or who face systematically domestic violence
– For all LGBTI people who are forced to live a double life and hide their own identity
– To protest for all promises never kept by the government. We were promised that the public institution were going to be on our side in a long awareness campaign but until now the awareness process has been done only by the organizations. The government promised also to legalize the same sex partnership following the recommendations of Council of Europe but after two years this is still just a promise never kept.
– We will march because we want to stop the violence and injustices inside families, schools, employment, and everywhere they happen.

The meeting point was at Mother Teresa Square and “Ecovolis” provided bikes for everyone. The Gay Ride went through the Boulevard of Martyrs and continued till the end of “King Zog I” boulevard.

Read their statement after the successful event here:

Hundreds of activists participated today at the 4th Pride event (the first took place in 2012) riding with bicycles at the Boulevard of Martyrs and Boulevard “King Zog I”.

They protested for the domestic violence which LGBTI people are facing every day and they demanded to the Prime Minister Edi Rama to keep his promises.  Foreign ambassadors showed up at the event but a part of the Ombudsman and Commissioner for Anti Discrimination no one from the government was present.

“We were only 12 people who challenged the discrimination and fear in 2012 and now we are hundreds”, said Kristi Pinderi, activist. He added: “We know we are thousand and we protest today also on behalf of those who cannot be here, but who is missing is our Prime Minister Edi Rama and the leader of the opposition Lulzim Basha who know very well to give promises but they always fail to keep them”.

Xheni Karaj, LGBTI activist said: “We protest today against every injustice people are forced to face in this country. We protest also for the Roma Community, also for people with disabilities, also for women who are violated and killed every day”.

Supported by Ecovolis, a large environmental group in the country, the participants in this joyful protest asked to the Police not to block the traffic. They respected all street signs in respect for every citizen not causing any problem with the traffic.

Holding a 12 meters long LGBTI flag they than marched back in front of the prime minister office. The activists reminded him: “You promised us you were going to vote for a partnership legalisation but you haven’t done it yet, you also promised you were going to be on our side in the long process of educating and emancipating the society, which you never did”.

In there banners was written: “It is Ok to be Gay”, “Ride with Pride”, “We demand equal rights not special rights”, “Yes, I support LGBTI rights, No, I am not gay”, etc.

One day ago the most important LGBTI organizations in the country, Aleanca LGBT and ProLGBT successfully organized a charity event. All money raised will go to support STREHA the first residential shelter in the whole region for LGBTI young people (age 18-25).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIWmZmkrbX4

]]> https://dayagainsthomophobia.org/idahot-events-2015-albania/feed/ 0 https://dayagainsthomophobia.org/cycle-for-love-tiranas-bike-p-ride/ https://dayagainsthomophobia.org/cycle-for-love-tiranas-bike-p-ride/#comments Tue, 22 Jul 2014 07:56:05 +0000 http://dayagainsthomophobia.org/?p=7708 Want to spread your message of love and harmony through the streets for May 17, and get fit (and have fun) doing it? A bike ride could be a great way to do it !

In Albania, LGBT community groups held their first annual ‘Bike (P) Ride’, through the streets of the capital Tirana, for May 17, in 2012 – braving rain and attacks by opponents. The picture (above) is from 2013, and in 2014, the 3rd annual event took place – again braving the rain – with more than 120 people participating.

More than that, in 2014, activists in various countries also started to organise bike rides for the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (Turkey, Peru, Bulgaria and Vietnam).

Not only is this sort of event free and fun, it can be a great alternative to a pride march or other public procession.

We asked Kristi Pinderi or Pro-LGBT in Albania, to explain a bit more about how they came to organise Tirana’s annual bike rides.

Where/how did the idea originate? What were the main assumptions behind the idea, the main expectations?

We did our first Gay Ride in May 2012. Please check out the video because it is very emotional (especially from 0.44):

It was 2012 and the LGBT movement in Albania was working underground and mostly on a volunteer basis since 2009. One of the young environmental activists in Tirana was trying to promote the use of bicycles in the capital and he had just began establishing some bicycle stations where everyone could rent a bicycle.

From our side, we thought it was the time to stand up and have a public event, a public demonstration of our right to feel free!

I remember this guy, who is now one of our biggest allies (Ened Mato from Ecovolis) said to us: why don’t you take the bicycles and just ride at the main boulevard?!

That guy was representing those hundreds of young people in Tirana fed up with the conventional ways of protesting. It was a great idea and we came together: LGBT, young people and environmental activists, and fed up young people, it was very encouraging for us to see other people not necessarily LGBT who were willing to help us.

We didn’t think twice!

The background of the momentum was that several of those involved in the emerging LGBT movement had just came out in their families. They were proud about this and they were all eager and excited about doing something in public. We were ideally some dozens of people ready to ride the bicycle : )

Earlier that week some of us were invited to the most important political show in Albania called “Opinion”, to face some very disturbing arguments about whether it is okay for Albania to have a Gay Pride Parade or not. That show attracted around 80 percent of the entire TV audience on one night, just some few days before we did the first Gay Ride.

We didn’t have even an idea of what to call it : ) We called it Riding against Homophobia, we didn’t even notice how similar Gay Ride was with Gay Pride : ) We just NEEDED to do something publicly, we needed the most important stage in order to feel, finally, free : )

But when the day came, we were shocked to find out that it was a day of heavy rain in Tirana : ) The first Ride was scheduled in afternoon, while during all the day we were just watching the weather outside our windows. We started to discuss either we should keep doing it or skip it because of the rain. I remember I had a phone call with Xheni Karaj from Aleanca LGBT who had managed to notify dozens of LGBT people and our supporters to come to the event and we were trying to make a decision: should we do it or not? Our biggest concern was that no one would dare to go out during that raining afternoon. But we said: well, we have faced and we still face every day much more difficult situations in our lives. The rain cannot stop us, it is the less problematic issue in our lives We decided to take the bicycles and do it… And we did it

The next year we did it again and in 2013 there was no rain. It was a wonderful day of sunshine. In 2012 we were only 13 people, in 2013 we were 80, and in 2014 we were more than 120

What were the risks/threats/obstacles involved and how did you deal with them?

Tirana’s annual May 17 bike ride, 2014.

It is important to collaborate with the police in order to ensure the security of the people who are willing to ride. We had an incident during 2012 but that gave us more energy and increased our passion and adrenaline to keep riding : ) We had a less important incident in 2013 and we had no incident at all during 2014. We even took our bicycles and started to walk instead of riding at the boulevard. And we also showed a big LGBT flag, and of course nothing bad happened. We finally won the victory of feeling free to express ourselves. Because of the gay ride we did for three consecutive years, now the debate is not either we should have a Gay pride Parade or not (because everyone can notice that we are doing it since 2012. : )

If the stereotype of the gay pride parade was a concern to public opinion, now it is not a concern anymore, because we showed to anyone that their “frame” of imagination was wrong and that you can march and show your pride even with alternative “frames”.

How did you get it done? How much time did it take? How much did it cost? How many people did it involve? What were the tactics that you used?

Tirana’s annual May 17 bike ride, 2014.

You need only two, three, four, five or even 80 motivated people who know how to ride a bicycle. And you need a car for those people who still don’t know how to ride a bicycle in order to help them follow the bicycles and feel the adrenaline. It takes always from 40 to 50 minutes to ride in our main boulevard : ) It is cost-less, you don’t need money to do that. It is free of charge : ) You might spend some money to call people, or if you want to have some t-shirts. But you don’t need to have a full staff working during the entire year for a 40 minutes Gay Ride. You can also spend some 200 US dollars for a website, or you can just skip that and create a blog for free : )

How do you rate the impact of this action, and how do you see its effects?

As I mentioned above, we deconstructed peacefully and without financial expenses the wrong phobia and “frame” and prejudices that people in Albania might have had about a Gay Pride Parade. They have been fed with 80’s and 90’s images and videos which do not necessary fit with the demands or priorities of local LGBT communities. Now, by the way, we can freely walk in the boulevard for a pride demonstration. No one would be violated, no one would be thrown stones at, or would be shoot, etc. : ) We don’t debate anymore in Albania about doing or not doing a Pride demonstration.

IT IS NOT IMPORTANT THE TOOL, BUT THE MESSAGE. YOU CAN ALWAYS INVENT THE TOOL, IF YOU DON’T HAVE IT. BUT YOU SHOULD STICK ON THE MESSAGE, REGARDLESS OF THE TOOL : )

What advice would you give to other people who’d like to undertake this activity?

Be creative and stick to the message not to the tool. The tool should be creative as well. If you don’t have a tool, think twice and think locally, it is there… Don’t copy and paste! Use your imagination, because it is fun : ) And don’t forget that public demonstrations are for the public, of course, but they should be for us, for our community first of all. These events should inspire us and only if we are inspired we can then inspire others.

If you did this action again, what would you do differently?

Nothing else. Next year we might consider having young musicians with violins and guitars to play beautiful songs and music. We can stop the ride in the middle of the boulevard and listen to them peacefully, and avoid screaming and all the other standard noises of an aggressive protest. You can give the message through riding a bicycle, smiling, being happy and listening to a violin… That’s what we need : )

IDAHOT 2014 in Albania included the premiere of the first documentary on LGBT communities in the country, a Festival of Diversity and a set of panels, and the 3rd Annual May 17 Gay Ride through the streets of the capital, Tirana.

Alliance Against Discrimination of LGBT and Pro LGBT organized the Third Tirana Gay Ride Against Homophobia at the “Boulevard of Martyrs” on “Mother Teresa” Square. You can watch a video of the action here:

IDAHOT 2014 Bike Ride in Tirana, Albania

Two groups also held a premiere screening of the documentary “SkaNdal” – the first ever documentary about the LGBT movement in Albania (with English subtitles). LGBT community members appeared for the first time with their faces and names and shared their personal stories about how the LGBT movement has changed their lives. You can watch the video trailer here:

Documentary film screening in Tirana, Albania.

Pink Embassy hosted a “Festival of Diversity” between 12-17 May, similarly to previous years. Activities included movie screenings, an NGO fair, parties and conferences. The group focused on Freedom of Expression through a specific media campaign on free speech/no hate speech.

Pink Embassy, in collaboration with the Human Rights House in Albania and Open Mind Spectrum Albania (OMSA), and Affiliate of Youth for Human Rights International (YHRI), also jointly organized the first LGBT Pride in Albania under the slogan: Say YES LOVE! About 60 activists from Albania as well as Macedonian human rights activists attended the event.

Say YES LOVE! Pride event in Tirana for IDAHOT 2014.

A video of Say YES LOVE! Pride can be viewed here:

Further information

• Historia Ime: IDAHOT 2014, ‘a three part journey to acceptance‘
• About the 3rd Annual Ride: www.tiranagayride.com
• Information on Pink Embassy events: www.pinkembassy.al

All of the events in Tirana, Albania were organised jointly by three groups: Pink Embassy, Aleanca LGBT, and United for LGBT Cause (ProLGBT).

IDAHO Gay Bike (P) Ride, Tirana

Dozens of LGBT activists biked on May 17th in the main Boulevard of Tirana with bicycles from Ecovolis, wearing T-shirts that read “Gay (P) Ride Against Homophobia”.

This was the second time that such an event took place in Albania, but this year the number of participants increased considerably. The LGBT activists biked in boulevard accompanied by the police. With was a culminating event of several activities in the frame of the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.

Source.

Young boys and girls in this cycling were accompanied by Mr. Totozani, the Albanian Ombudsman. Ms. Baraku the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner and representatives of the international community.

Local activist Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei reports: ‘the Second Annual Gay Ride, which became basically our Albanian take on the pride events that are held around the world, turned out to be a great success, without smoke bombs, and many participants from the community as well as straight allies. Excuse my jubilant tone, but it is quite something when you’re able to pull off biking around on the main boulevard of Tirana, escorted by the police, with people applauding on the sidewalk and massive (and positive!) media coverage in a Balkan country…’

Footage of the ride can be viewed here:

In a more minor repeat of last year’s events, after the event was finished, a group of LGBT activists were attacked with tear gas explosives at the premises of a bar in the vicinity of the Academy of Arts, by two unidentified young men. Gerven Oei gives a positive spin to the incident ‘Ok ok and people did throw smoke bombs at us, but only after the Gay Ride’.

Bike ride participants attacked with tear gas explosives. Source.

Article 1 Exhibition

Tirana also received the Swedish exhibition “Article 1″ (in partnership with the Unstraight Museum of Sweden). Local activist Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei hailed the event a success: ‘The exhibition “Art. 1″ consisted of several exhibits provided by different Swedish museum, surrounding the centerpiece with objects and stories from the Albanian LGBT community, as well as prints from the previous “Kukafshehti” exhibition. When first conceived we hardly thought it possible to enter such a state institution with an exhibition on the lives and loves of the community, but in the end we were met with hospitality, a great (though initially hesitant) staff, and we managed to hang three huge banners featuring the Swedish “Queer Queen” Christina smoking a pipe immediately below Mother Albania holding her rifle. The Albanian LGBT community had entered the state! The two-weeks exhibition was accompanied by film screenings of “Parada” and “How To Survive a Plague,” panel discussions on the relation between art, media, and the LGBT community, lesbianism and feminism, and the role of art institutions in representing “minor” histories. An enormous amount of visitors came to see the exhibition and attended the panels.’

Activists hail Article 1 Exhibition a success ! Source.

For more info see: http://historia-ime.com/en/about-us-ne.html // http://www.aleancalgbt.org/

Straight Allies Presented with Awards

Activists also joined together to recognise excellence in fighting discrimination, amongst well-known ‘straight allies’ in Albania. Before May 17, activists created a short list of 12 prominent allies in the public eye. And at the ceremony itself, gave awards to all 12 finalists.

You can find info about the 12 prizes, including who was nominated and why, at the Historia Ime news portal:

The ceremony is also available to watch online in HD: