WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Police in eastern Poland detained a number of people who threw bottles at officers and verbally abused participants in the city of Bialystok’s first LGBT pride parade Saturday.
Officers in riot gear and border guards escorted more than 500 people along the Equality Parade route in Bialystok.
Police officers fired tear gas when a group of young men who were trying to block the parade started throwing bottles at them.
Local police spokesman Tomasz Krupa said one person was detained for allegedly snatching a rainbow flag away from a parade participant.
The parade continued, with banners reading “Love is not a Sin” and “Equality of the Sexes.”
In 2016, a few hundred young nationalists marched through Bialystok carrying banners for far-right organizations that included the National-Radical Camp, which is modeled after a fascist movement from 1930s Poland.
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