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.
SEE ALSO: Kazakh Feminist Collective 'Arbitrarily' Denied RegistrationLast 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.