Sixty-one lawmakers signed a petition urging Ukraine’s capital city’s mayor to ban a gay-pride parade in Kiev scheduled for 25 May.

Pavlo Unhuryan, parliamentary and leader of the right wing of Ukraine’s Family Movement, announced today (20 May) that the petition requests a total ban on gay-pride parades ‘and similar events in Kiev in May-June 2013.’

According to the Info Victory portal, the petition states that such events should be banned because they ‘may lead to violent clashes’ between LGBT rights advocates and their opponents.

In February, lawmakers drafted a bill aiming to ban discrimination against LGBT people, but last week, Ukraine’s parliament postponed a panned debate on it, following massive anti-gay protests.

Last week Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report showing that homophobia and anti LGBT discrimination is spiraling out of control in the Ukraine.

It concludes that, as a matter of urgency, that the Ukrainian government must introduce legislation to address discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity that are non-existent in the Ukraine.

Last year’s Pride parade was cancelled at the last moment because of threats of violence and the failure of the Kiev police to put in place adequate security measures to protect marchers.

Immediately after the cancellation, and in the months that followed, some of the organizers were targeted and attacked with tear gas because of their association with the event.

According to the HRW report, none of the investigations into these attacks has been concluded.