The organisers of China’s first Gay Pride Festival have been told to cancel two of their sessions. The news came on the very day a state-run newspaper described the week-long festival as of “profound significance”. Shanghai officials have warned two groups who planned to hold a play and a film screening they would face “severe consequences” if they went ahead. Homosexuality was illegal in China until 1997, and officials described it as a mental illness until 2001. Since then the government’s attitude might best be characterised as “don’t condemn, but don’t promote”.

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