Protesters waving flags in Moscow

Russian gay rights activists held a small, scattered protest in Moscow on Sunday, defying repeated refusals by the city authorities to permit parades or demonstrations, according to the International Herald Tribune.

Activists repeatedly have tried to hold parades and rallies in the Russian capital in support of gay rights. Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who has called homosexuality “satanic,” has rejected all requests for permits. On Sunday, about 20 protesters gathered outside the Tchaikovsky Conservatory, chanting “No to Homophobia” and other slogans. Many held rainbow flags.

“We have gathered in a very symbolic place to pay tribute to a person who was gay himself and at the same time had to conceal it because of repressive laws and disapproval in society,” said Nikolai Alekseyev, a protest organizer. Many of Tchaikovsky’s biographers have believed that he was a homosexual.

Meanwhile, just a few blocks away, hundreds of riot police officers, journalists and onlookers thronged a square in front of City Hall in anticipation of a larger, planned protest that never materialized. Several people brandished icons and crosses and at least one gay rights supporter was assaulted while uniformed police officers stood by. Activists unfurled a banner from a building by the square reading “Rights for Gays and Lesbians!” and “Take Mayor Luzhkov’s Homophobia to Court” before the police pulled it down.

An Associated Press photographer saw several people detained by the police. The photographer, Ekho Moskvy, said as many as 15 people had been detained and the Interfax news agency said all were nationalists. A city police duty officer, however, said that 13 people had been detained in all but that they had been held for jaywalking, not in connection with the protest. He refused to give his name because he said he was not authorized to speak to the media.

For two years, gay activists have sought permission to mark publicly the date in 1993 when homosexuality was decriminalized, but officials repeatedly have refused.

Watch part of the protest here: