Doing the police's job for them

The organisers of this year's Gay Pride in Tallinn have allegedly been asked by the police to relocate their parade from the Old Town, citing the infringement of the civic rights of ordinary citizens it could lead to along its narrow, cobbled streets. Apparently they may be forced to squeeze into doorways or some such as the parade passes. It's not such a bad idea, frankly, as the winding, uneven alleys of the Old Town, as lovely as they are, don't really lend themselves to such an event.

However, the police's demands go further: they want assurances that the organisers of the parade are doing everything required of them to guarantee the safety of those involved. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it kind of suggests that none of the onus for protecting the people in the parade falls on the police. It also suggests that the police feel the organisers and the people in the parade are somehow responsible for the actions of those who actually put them at risk. And if they do, what does it say about the police? How many other cases do they approach with the 'victim as perpetrator' attitude?

You can understand their desire to avoid a repeat of the scenes the country witnessed during last year's parade (pictured), but making the GLBT community of Estonia scapegoats for their own persecution under the ironic pretext of securing other people's civil liberties is about as inappropriate as it comes.