Pride March 2021 in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) will be held on August 14th at noon in Sarajevo under the slogan “Resistance from the Margins”.
“We, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, trans, intersex, and queer people go out on the streets because we experience pandemic restrictions every day. The BiH Pride Parade is a necessary political protest and expression of resistance. In this way, we point out all institutional, legal, and socio-economic obstacles which LGBTIQ + people face continuously and daily, ” they stated.
In the past year, the rights and freedoms of LGBTIQ + people were further deteriorated, pushed to the margins, domestic violence was on the rise, while the visibility of our experiences was almost non-existent.
“The pandemic has silenced the voices of our community, but our smiles and lives have not stopped. This year, loudly and proudly, we are sending a clear message from the streets that we still exist and use our colors to resist with constant exposure to fear, violence, discrimination, violations of our basic human rights, and unequal treatment, ” they added.
Further, they said that the BiH pride march appeared from the need to improve the daily lives of LGBTIQ + people in BiH. Using the constitutionally guaranteed right to public assembly, we go out to the streets and demand equality and a life free from fear and violence.
“There are many obstacles and issues that LGBTIQ + people resist on a daily basis. Aware of the fact that once hard-won rights can be revoked overnight, we tell the whole society and relevant institutions that we will never give up resistance to fascist efforts to suppress and restrict LGBTIQ + freedoms. The problems we experience have not changed in the last year, so we still face homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, and interphobia when going to public institutions, cafes, restaurants, theaters, cinemas, or any other public place. Institutional discrimination is still present, and the most obvious example is the non-existence of the Law on Same-Sex Partnership and the unequal treatment of our protest march when compared to other protests,” they emphasized, Klix.ba writes.
