Riot police in Moscow ruthlessly broke up a peaceful gay-rights protest yesterday, at times using violence to detain the participants. Moscow authorities had banned the march, timed to coincide with the supposedly gay-friendly Eurovision Song Contest, but around 30 activists decided to protest anyway, changing the venue at the last minute.

They gathered near Moscow's main university, chanting slogans and unveiling banners protesting against homophobia in Russian society.

Most of the demonstrators, including the organiser Nikolai Alexeev and British gay-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, were bundled into police vans and driven away.

Moscow authorities had said the march had been banned to prevent "moral degradation". The city's mayor has referred to gays as "satanists" before.

At the central Moscow location where the march had initially been planned, around 1,000 riot police were massed. In another part of the city, a small "anti-gay" protest was allowed to go ahead, though six Orthodox Christian activists were detained at Pushkin Square, where the gay march was initially slated to take place.

"We will not allow these people to turn our city into another Sodom," said Igor Miroshnichenko just before he was arrested.

Tatchell was released without charge in the afternoon after the British embassy requested consular access to him, but most of the other participants in the gay demonstration were still being held by police.

Alexeev was separated from the rest. "We can't make contact with him," Tatchell said. "We're very concerned for his safety and well-being."

Tatchell said it was "disappointing" that so little open support had been given to the protesters from Eurovision participants.

"They are under huge pressure to avoid controversy over this," he said.

The police had been attempting to detain the gay protesters in the days leading up to the march, and the activists spent two days hiding out at a country house in a forest outside the city.

They had to evade police roadblocks to make their way into the capital yesterday morning.

However, within five minutes of their protest starting at the new, unannounced venue, they were all under arrest, with police using strong-arm tactics against no resistance.