Pride Week begins in Belgrade as organizer reports more than 20 attacks on LGBT+ people this year

Belgrade Pride Week has begun under a slogan that organizers say reflects an unresolved question: whether LGBT+ people truly have room to live freely and without fear in Serbian society.

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There Is Room for All of Us

The annual Pride event, titled “There Is Room for All of Us,” will culminate in a march through central Belgrade on September 5. It will start at 4 p.m. from Manjež Park.

Danica Vučenović, this year’s Pride patron, said the event’s 25th anniversary could have been a celebration of freedom and equality in a tolerant and democratic society. Instead, she said, the anniversary of the “Bloody Pride” remains a reminder that space for the community is still restricted.

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But alas, 25 years after the “Bloody Pride,” the symbolic slogan “There Is Room for All of Us” is also the essential message suggesting that the question of space in this society is still, perhaps more than ever, limited.

Bojan Lazić of the Belgrade Pride organizing committee said attacks against LGBT+ people had intensified. “This year alone, we have recorded more than 20 cases of violence against LGBT+ people,” he said, referring to the most serious physical attacks. Organizers said other forms of violence occurred several times more often.

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This year alone, we have recorded more than 20 cases of violence against LGBT+ people.

Agata Đurić, one of the organizers of Belgrade’s first Pride, said conditions had improved since 2001, including through new organizations and legal changes such as the anti-discrimination law. But two key laws, covering same-sex partnerships and gender identity and the rights of intersex people, remain stalled. This year’s Pride queen, Vlažena, ended with a call to keep their heads raised: “My crown is not only my crown, but the crown of all of us who are not afraid to raise our heads.”

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My crown is not only my crown, but the crown of all of us who are not afraid to raise our heads.