VILNIUS - TWENTY years on from the fall of the Iron Curtain, Eastern Europe's homosexuals say they still face a tough struggle for equal rights, plus the kind of verbal abuse and violence rarely seen in the West anymore.

The picture is similar from the Baltic to the Balkans, campaigners say, with homosexuality remaining taboo despite the decriminalisation of same-sex relationships that were banned by communist regimes.

'Homophobia is taking a new turn. It's becoming institutionalised,' Vladimir Simonko, head of the Gay League in the Baltic state of Lithuania, told AFP.

Lithuania has been spotlighted over controversial legislation voted in by its conservative-dominated parliament in July, which is due to come into force in March 2010 unless President Dalia Grybauskaite manages to overturn it.

This new law bars the public dissemination of information deemed favourable to homosexuality on the grounds that it could harm the mental health and physical, intellectual and moral development of minors.

'When lawmakers adopt homophobic laws, nobody can be certain that groups of people who hate us won't take that as a green light to move against us,' said Mr Simonko. -- AFP