AQTOBE, Kazakhstan -- More than 100 people have protested in Kazakhstan's northwestern city of Aqtobe against an event planned by LGBT activists.
The protesters said at the August 8 rally that they would hand a petition to the local authorities requesting them "not to allow representatives of a movement that propagates values contradicting our traditions and religion" to enter Aqtobe.
Police did not interfere with the unsanctioned rally.
A feminist initiative, Feminita, plans to hold a seminar on August 13 on the rights of the LGBT community in the Central Asian nation.
Feminita co-founder Gulzada Serzhan told RFE/RL that the group will hold the event despite threats it has received in recent days.
Last month, seminars organized by Feminita were disrupted by angry mobs in the central Kazakh city of Qaraghandy.
A similar event was disrupted by protesters in the southern city of Shymkent in May.
Although the Central Asian nation decriminalized self-sex relations in the 1990s, scrapping a Soviet-era law, sexual minorities still face firmly entrenched social taboos.
Rights groups say LGBT people face discrimination and persecution across the former Soviet Union.
