Police detained 25 people after far-right groups attacked peaceful LGBT protesters taking part in their first ever Pride parade in the Polish city of Bialystok.

Around 500 members of the LGBT community marched through the streets of the city to celebrate equality on Saturday.

Police in riot gear were drafted in to protect demonstrators as they made their way through and were targeted by people shouting homophobic insults and wearing football T-shirts.

Some men were seen wearing nationalist clothing, amid claims by some far-right groups that homosexuality is a 'threat to traditional Polish values'.

Members of the LGBT marched in Bialystok, eastern Poland on Saturday for the city's first ever Pride parade

Bialystok's Pride march was crashed by far-right protestors who wore masks and football shirts and shouted offensive chants at event-goers

Teargas was fired by police as they tried to defuse tensions between LGBT activists and members of far-right groups

Officers stormed areas of the city centre where they fired tear gas and wrestled violent counter-protestors to the ground to stop them attacking activists.

Local police spokesman Tomasz Krupa said one person was detained for allegedly snatching a rainbow flag away from a parade participant.

Despite the clashes, members of the parade continued to wave their banners, which read 'Love is Love' and 'Equality of the Sexes'.

Others were pictured on social media desperately trying to flee the scene.

The ruling Polish Law and Justice (PiS), which is likely to face a General Election in October, claims they are the 'only party that gives 100 per cent guarantee our values will be protected.

A total of 25 people were detained. Police are pictured restraining a man who cowers on the ground

A man is pictured wearing a 'Polish White Front' T-shirt during the city's first LGBT Pride event

Another protestor is pictured being arrested on the ground as someone films for social media

Leader Karoslaw Kaczynski has previously claimed LGBT rights pose a 'real threat to our identity and nation.

Some observers have drawn parallels with the party's 2015 campaign, when it deployed anti-immigrant rhetoric.

'One should condemn any act of hooliganism and I condemn it doubly (...) Firstly because you can't beat, yank people under any circumstances,' PiS legislator Marcin Horala told broadcaster TVN24.

'But also because nothing helps promote LGBT in Poland as much as giving them the role of victim, as was the case in Bialystok,' he added.

LGBT activists are pictured running away from violent scenes in the centre of Bialystok, Poland yesterday after the far-right crashed their Pride march

Polcie descended on the equality march when things turned violent on Saturday in Bialystok

PiS took power in 2015 and remains popular thanks to generous welfare payouts, low unemployment and its nationalist rhetoric.

A newspaper supporting PiS was criticised in recent days by the US and British embassies for its plan to put an 'LGBT-free zone' sticker on one of its editions.

In 2016, a few hundred young nationalists marched through Bialystok carrying banners for far-right organizations that included the National-Radical Camp, which is modelled after a fascist movement from 1930s Poland.

Demonstrators run from police as smoke fills the street of Bialystok, eastern Poland on Saturday