More than 750,000 people clogged Sydney's Oxford Street February 28 for the 20th annual gay Mardi Gras parade.

There were a record 274 contingents, including, for the first time, a group of gay cops in uniform. International entries included Tonga's Miss Galaxy, the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, the Exotic Blossoms of Fiji and the Filipino Queens.

U2 star Bono attended in a black outfit and leopard-skin boots.

"I love it," he said. "It is the celebration of the flesh, something that is not done in northern Europe. Tolerance is the mark of any evolved society."

The first Mardi Gras parade in 1978 was attacked by police, and 53 of the approximately 1,000 marchers were arrested.

Although the situation today could hardly be more different, Mardi Gras President Bev Lange noted, "We still don't have equal rights in regard to recognition of our relationships, nor in regard to age of consent."

Romanian President Emil Constantinescu signed a decree March 3 releasing Mariana Cetiner from prison.

Cetiner, 40, had served two years of a three-year sentence for "luring another woman into sexual intercourse." In December, she had been adopted by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience.

In a statement, Amnesty welcomed Cetiner's release but said it remains concerned for her welfare.

"She suffered repeated beatings whilst in prison. She is unwell and is extremely isolated with little support from friends and family in her country," said Linda Wilkinson of Amnesty's British gay network.

In January, President Constantinescu promised foreign gay activists he would pardon all gays and lesbians jailed under the nation's anti-gay laws.

"Homosexuality is the last remaining human-rights problem we have to address in Romania, and we will address it," he told the visiting activists.

Romanian law bans gay sex between consenting adults "if the act was committed in public or has produced public scandal." It is also illegal "to entice or seduce a person to practice same-sex acts, as well as to form propaganda associations, or to engage in other forms of proselytizing with the same aim." The penalty is one to five years in prison.

Appeals for the release of persons jailed for being gay – and for repeal of the laws under which they were convicted -- can be sent to President Emil Constantinescu, Excelenti Sale, Presedintele Romaniei, Palatul Cotroceni, Bd. Geiuli 1, 76238 Bucuresti, Romania.

Rex Wockner's weekly international news reports dating back to May 1994 can be searched at http://www.wockner.com. The reports in their original form are archived at http://www.qrd.org/qrd/www/world/wockner.html, which also archives Wockner's Quote Unquote column and some of his longer gay-press articles.