Labour MP Charles Chauvel has written to New Zealand’s Russian Ambassador Mikhail Lysenko to express Rainbow Labour’s shock at news of assaulted and imprisoned gay protesters in Moscow. Russian police detained gay protesters calling for the right to hold a Gay Pride parade in central Moscow while nationalists shouting "death to homosexuals" punched and kicked the demonstrators on 27th May. “The members of the Rainbow Labour Caucus of the New Zealand Labour Party express our shock at the apparent breakdown in the Rule of Law in Moscow on 27 May outside the office of the Mayor of that City,’ writes Chauvel. “The breakdown is evidenced by the arrest of Mr Nikolai Alexeyev, the unpunished assaults against and arrests of Mr Peter Tatchell and Mr Volker Beck MP, as well as by the failure of police to protect peaceful protesters and to restrain right-wing hooligans seeking to inhibit their right to peaceful assembly and expression. “We ask that you pass our strongest condemnation of these failures in the Rule of Law, notably the right to peaceful assembly and expression, to your Government. We hope that in doing so you will advise of the damage that events such as this do to the international reputation of the Russian Federation,” the MP continues. This is the second year in succession Rainbow Labour has felt it necessary to express disappointment about the repression of gay and lesbian people in Moscow. “We hope that we will not need to do so again next year at this time,” Chauvel concludes. Ref: Rainbow Labour (m)