Yahoo News Beirut Pride week goes ahead despite Islamist threats
Threats from Islamist groups failed to derail the Arab world’s first LGBT Pride week, which ended in Beirut on Sunday.
In a country where homosexual acts remain illegal, some 4,000 people attended more than a dozen events -- including conferences, parties and workshops -- that took place both inside and outside Beirut under the banner of Beirut Pride.
On Saturday night, the rainbow flag, an internationally recognised symbol of gay rights, flew high outside 18 bars in Mar Mikhael, a popular nightlife district of the Lebanese capital.
The flag also flew during the week outside the British and Dutch embassies in Beirut.
Speaking to The Telegraph on Sunday morning, Hadi Damien, who initiated Beirut Pride, said: “Attendance surpassed all initial expectations”.
Scheduled to coincide with International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHoT) on 17 May, Beirut Pride served as a platform for many of the events already organised by LGBT rights NGOs and activists who for years have campaigned against homophobia in Lebanon.
However, the week’s success followed an ominous beginning: its first event was cancelled less than 24 hours in advance due to threats from an Islamist group.
The League of Muslim Scholars in Lebanon, a Salafist group, on 14 May, used social media to voice its opposition to the NGO Proud Lebanon’s day-long series of discussions and presentations on LGBT issues and rights.
Within hours, the downtown Beirut hotel scheduled to host the event had cancelled it.
“The hotel apologised and said they couldn’t provide security for everyone,” Cosette Maalouf, Proud Lebanon’s advocacy officer, explained, adding that the venue had “received pressure from the Lebanese authorities to cancel the event”.
Similarly, the host venue cancelled an event organised by Helem, the first Lebanese and Arab LGBT rights NGO.
According Helem’s community centre manager, Joseph Aoun, the cancellation instruction came from “a security agency of the Lebanese state” following “threats from radical groups”.
However, the campaign for LGBT social acceptance has made significant strides in Lebanon of late.
A Lebanese-owned restaurant chain even recently featured a same sex couple in an advertisement.
Indeed, Mr Damien suggests that turnout at Beirut Pride events may have increased following the publicity of the cancellations.
For example, 450 people -- four times the anticipated number -- attended a public storytelling night on Monday at which guest speakers and audience members shared their personal stories as members and friends of the LGBT community.
Dima Matta, the event’s host, said “the amount of hands raised waiting to speak in a sea of audience members made my heart happy.”
Those working on the campaign have taken heart from the week’s success, and Beirut Pride 2018 is, according to Mr Damien, scheduled for 12-20 May next year.
