Planning meeting for Russian anti-fascist & LGBT solidarity action

Call to Action for Solidarity Rally against LGBT Bashing and Political Repression in Russia



What: Planning meeting to organize an action in solidarity with targets of fascism in Russia
When: Tuesday, January 7, 2014, 6:00-7:30pm
Where: San Francisco Main Library, Mary Louise Stong Room, Civic Center

Dear friend,



You are warmly invited to participate in a community organizing meeting on Tuesday, January 7, 2014. The purpose of the meeting is to develop ideas, slogans and plans for a public rally in February in San Francisco demanding queer and civil rights in Russia and to show solidarity with targets of escalating fascism.



The 2014 Winter Olympics will be held in Sochi, Russia from February 7–23. Many of you are aware that state-supported violent bigotry and repression against the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender/queer community and others in Russia is an increasingly serious reality. Also being targeted are dissidents, radicals, feminists, artists, immigrants, and national and religious minorities. The Putin Administration, instead of advancing equality for all, is dragging Russia backward by instituting laws making it a crime to be gay or to even advocate for LGBT rights, throwing socialists, anarchists, and feminists like punk rock group Pussy Riot into prison, and clamping down on all forms of public protest. These policies aim to divert working people’s anger at economic austerity measures and are emboldening a growing fascist movement. (Links to more information can be found below.)



We believe that oppressed and working people everywhere have a stake in the fight to stamp out dangerous rightwing scapegoating. What’s needed is a public display of solidarity in order to show that people in the Bay Area support civil liberties for all, the separation of church and state, and solidarity with the oppressed—in Russia and here at home.



We invite you to a community meeting to discuss and give input into planning a visible and disciplined protest rally in San Francisco to oppose Putin’s repression. Your ideas, support, endorsement, and help are all greatly needed. The first planning meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 7, 6:00–7:30pm in the Mary Louise Stong Room (1st floor near information desk), located in the Main Library at 100 Larkin Street in San Francisco (near Grove and Market Streets; use Civic Center BART/Muni). Everyone is welcome. We hope to see you there—please spread the word.



For more information or to get involved, please contact Masha at 415-678-8232 or Toni Mendicino at 415-730-2917, or email .



Note: this is not a Library Sponsored Program. Food and drink is not allowed in the library.



More information can be found here:


http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/10/gay-russian-teens-avoid-propaganda-law

http://therussianreader.wordpress.com/2013/11/09/dmitry-chizhevsky/

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/downfall-toward-fascism/489100.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/rising-russian-nationalism-sets-off-ethnic-tension/2013/11/11/9c9c15ae-495c-11e3-b87a-e66bd9ff3537_story.html

http://www.socialism.com/drupal-6.8/?q=node/2594 (“Russia’s new anti-LGBT law denounced”)

http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t1006504/

http://www.vocativ.com/11-2013/russian-neo-nazis-now-beating-gays-ukraine/



*

Приглашаются все желающие на мероприятие, где мы

вместе будем создавать идеи и лозунги, которые в дальнейшем будем использовать на митинге в защиту прав человека в России

Репрессии феменисток, радикалов, художников, религиозных и этнических меньшинств и выражающих несогласие с нынешнем российским правительством становятся все более и более частыми в России. В последнее время мы также наблюдаем гонения на геев, лезбиянок, бисексуалов и трансгендеров. Вместе с Путиным Россия не развивается, а падает в низ. Это падение обусловленно законом, жестко притесняющим права секс-меньшинств, преследованием тех, кто борется за права народа, нахождением участницы группы Пуси Райот в тюрьме и постоянными подавлениями протестов против правительства. Путинская политика насилует судьбы многих людей.

Несогласные с гонениями и запретом свободы слова в России собираются вместе, чтобы выразить поддержку страдающим от путинского режима, а также выразить недовольство российским правительством, усиленно развивающим фашизм.

Во вторник 7ого января с 6 до 7:30 вечера

В Главной библиотеке – Mary Louise Stong Room, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco

По вопросам звоните Маше 415-678-8232, Тони 415-730-2917 или пишите на email maketheworldbetterSF [at] gmail.com