PRESS RELEASE
AUGUST 12, 2003
Tallinn/Riga -- After the successful Stockholm stage of the 2003
Moonbow Festival, Tallinn was the host of the moving homo culture and
human rights event August 9-10 with seminars, discussions,
performances, film screenings and art shows.
"We had a very fine festival and are looking forward to next year
-- when we will also include Estonia's first Pride parade," says
organizer Kriss from Mea Culpa.
The Tallinn phase also included the 3rd cultural session of the
Nordic Homo Council -- approving next year's plans for Moonbow on both sides of the Baltic, and the 3rd homo cultural visit to St. Petersburg next May for a special "rainbow" Amnesty International event to help compensate for Amnesty's Russian campaign which has left out homo questions.
Pioneering Nordic Rainbow Culture Report for Nordic Council
"The Nordic Rainbow Humanists and other Nordic Homo Council
members offered to compile the reports of homo culture and
international activities of the past year in the "1st Nordic Rainbow Cultural Report" for the information offices of the Nordic Council (of
parliamentarians)," says Bill Schiller, international secretary of the
NHC and Moonbow festival co-ordinator.
"We noted with saddness that aside from the Nordic Homo
Council, the only other Nordic applicants for membership approval at
the coming ILGA (International Lesbian & Gay Association) world
conference in Manila are 2 Swedish homo organizations," Schiller adds.
"The NHC pledges to try to strengthen the badly diminished Nordic voice in the ILGA -- especially important with so many new organizations joining from Eastern Europe and elsewhere eager for mutual co-operation."
Swedish, Finnish, Estonian Homo Groups Honored
At the session, the annual 'Arco Nordica' award for outstanding
and pioneering homo culture and international solidarity work was
announced -- going to the 1st Queer Umeå (Sweden) , the 1st Waasa Pride (Finland) and Mea Culpa (Estonia).
The Moonbow 2003 moves on to Riga August 23-24 for more cultural
events, art shows, film screenings and seminars -- in the event
arranged by Tupilak (organization of lesbian & gay cultural workers in the Nordic area)-Latvia. "We are holding our festival at a local in the National Medical Museum -- a historic former gay bar and the site of the 4th ILGCN world conference stage in Riga in 2001," explains organizer and Latvian artist, Armins Ozolins (kraft@one.lv).
Special guest of honor in Riga will be Olga Padunova from the
rainbow Amnesty group in the dictatorship of Belarus -- attending the
1st Baltic regional rainbow Amnesty meeting to discuss co-operation
between the LBGT groups in the region.
"We hope this can increase co-operation between the Nordic countries
and Belarus -- started from the early Pride events in Minsk which were
attacked and sabotaged by police," Schiller concludes.
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