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Around 100,000 people took part in Yesterday’s Pride Parade in Brussels, the 24th edition of the event.
This year’s event carried the theme of intersectionality, with the slogan All for One: not only in support of the rights of LGBT people but also those living in poverty, refugees and people with a handicap. As well as the parade itself, there were planned activities all day in the Pride Village on the Mont des Arts and he Rainbow Village in the Saint-Géry area.
The parade itself was kicked off at 13.45 by César Sampson, last year’s Eurovision entry from Austria. After-parties later took place in the villages, and more are planned for today.
Along the parade route police had set up visible and covert security measures, and asked participants not to bring backpacks or sharp objects to the parade, and to allow themselves to be searched at checkpoints.
The only reported incident took place when a group of militants calling themselves Reclaim the Pride were extracted by police from the parade on Rue Ravenstein and forced to wait by the side of the road until the entire parade had passed. The group is critical of what it sees as the conversion of the Pride Parade from a political event into an excuse for a party. As the parade passed the group booed politicians taking part with the exception of the Greens, but whole one group member was temporarily placed in handcuffs, no arrests were made.
Alan Hope
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