Here in Europe, homophobia is alive and kicking – and kicking very hard. It's happening right on the doorstep of the EU. On the other side of the EU's border, anti-gay repression is as strong as ever, and even worse than the ugly scenes we have seen in recent years in countries like Lithuania and Poland.

Last month, I helped organise the Slavic gay pride march in Minsk, capital of Belarus. The event was met with the most extraordinary police violence that I have ever seen. Even the Moscow anti-riot police are saints compared to their brutal Belarusian colleagues. Most of the 25 participants who were not able to run fast enough were arrested. They were beaten, humiliated and threatened while in custody. After being jailed for 48 hours, they were fined. For what? For exercising their right to freedom of expression.

In Moscow, where our pride march has been banned by the mayor for five consecutive years, it is only thanks to a cat-and-mouse game with the police that we managed to march without being arrested.

Last Saturday, in St Petersburg, dozens of brave activists decided to defy the ban imposed on gay pride by the city governor. Again, five of us were arrested.

Looking back on these violent homophobic events, all those who experienced this repression are proud that they took a stand for freedom. Some will think that the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) pride protesters in Minsk, Moscow or St Petersburg were simply ignorant of the risk they were taking, and some will call them heroes.

The truth is that they were just young, idealistic, motivated individuals who followed their instinct for social justice. They believed they were right and, most of all, they understood that to make the future requires action today.

All across eastern Europe, more and more LGBT people are standing up for their rights and joining the movement for queer freedom. This is not surprising. Within the LGBT communities of the former Soviet empire, this yearning for equality and human rights is strong and undiminished.

As everywhere else, there are leaders, followers and those who are watching the unfolding queer revolution from the distance, supportive or not. One would think that activists might be frightened by the police or the beatings, but in fact we are being unwittingly aided by our opponents. Whether they are religious groups, skinheads, nationalists, neo-Nazis or simply homophobic individuals, our enemies draw public attention to our protests and convince us that what we are doing is right and necessary.

This year in eastern Europe, in Vilnius, Minsk, Bratislava and St Petersburg, old and new groups of LGBT people organised gay pride marches for the first time. They knew their events were likely to be banned. Violent attacks were expected, but they still turned out to march. They defied their detractors and won publicity for the LGBT rights cause; raising awareness, provoking debate and, sometimes, winning hearts and minds.

EU enlargement has embraced most of the former eastern bloc and in those countries where there is opposition to human rights and gay rights, the EU is pushing to force changes. In Vilnius, Warsaw, Bucharest, Bratislava and Budapest, EU support is literally flowing.

In a joint statement last May, 16 EU embassies condemned in the violence for the first-ever gay pride march in Slovakia. In Vilnius, ambassadors of EU member states joined the first gay pride march, also hosting receptions for the participants: the same as they did in Riga and Bucharest.

That's on the "western" side of the wall. But on the eastern side, outside the enlarged borders of the EU, things are different.

Activists in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine have little political support. This is not to say that the EU cares for human rights only within the limits of its territory. It showed its concern by holding human rights discussions with its neighbours. But they never materialise. And here is the paradox.

In Minsk, Moscow and St Petersburg, when LGBT activists turned to the EU and its member states for political support, only negative answers were received. What the EU can do for eastern European activists within its borders cannot be replicated outside the union.

With Russia, there is what foreign diplomats call "realpolitik". Russia is a strong supplier of oil and gas to the EU. And Russia is also a key partner in the talks on Iran and North Korea.

If Russia was suffering a financial crisis similar to the one it went through in 1998, I have no doubt the EU would be supporting LGBT rights firmly. That is how male homosexuality came to be decriminalised in 1993 by President Yeltsin, when Russia wanted to enter the Council of Europe.

But today we are in a different time. Oil prices are high and Russia showed recently that no one can stop it from doing as it pleases, even if it means invading its neighbours. Being on the wrong side of the wall, we are the hostages of geopolitical considerations that are outside our control.

The EU is ready to write cheques to NGOs and the European parliament can award prizes to our human rights activists, but what about more effective measures? It could impose a travel ban on Russian officials who refuse to comply with basic human rights – for example, those who call for gay people to be killed. Activists need political backing much more that they need money. The people who stand for gay rights and human rights dream to live in a society that will accept them as they are. TThey don't dream of receiving grants or to leave their country – but to simply live in a more democratic and freer society.