SARAJEVO (AFP) — Organisers of Bosnia's first-ever gay rights festival said on Thursday they were moving the event underground the day after participants were attacked by hooligans at the opening ceremony.
"We are not interrupting the festival, but we will change the format. It will no longer be a public event," Slobodanka Dekic from Association Q, which organised the festival in Sarajevo, told AFP.
"The right people will have the right information about what is happening and where," she added.
Eight people, including two journalists and a policeman, were injured on Wednesday in attacks by dozens of anti-gay protestors following the opening ceremony in downtown Sarajevo, where posters declaring "Death to Homos" have appeared in recent days.
A heavy police deployment prevented the participants from being attacked as they were leaving the ceremony in the Academy of Fine Arts, but the violence spread to nearby streets.
Organisers said that the attackers even dragged some people from vehicles to beat them.
"We had the guarantees from the mayor and police that there will be no violence... somebody will have to assume the responsibility for what has happened," Dekic said.
Bosnia's Human Rights Minister Safet Halilovic, Sarajevo mayoress Semiha Borovac and a number of political parties and non-governmental organizations condemned violence by hooligans.
"Attack last night on organizers and visitors of the queer festival is an example of unacceptable human rights violations," Halilovic said in a statement.
"Human rights must be respected without any exceptions," she added.
The Bosnian Helsinki Committee also expressed its solidarity with the victims of what it described as "madness."
"We condemn physical violence and request that the attackers on festival organizers be appropriately punished," its president Srdjan Dizdarevic said.
Association Q provoked fury with the announcement that they were organizing the four-day festival, particularly upsetting the Muslim majority as it is happening during the holy month of Ramadan.
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