Both, probably.

Of course the journalists were not trying to do a representative survey. From what I could tell, the interviews were taken right were the demonstration was, and the people they interviewed looked to me as if they'd come there to "help" just in case the police wouldn't "clean" the streets properly.

On the other hand:

In the interview I mentioned above, the Austrian journalist said that the situation for gays and lesbians in Mosow is bad and they are being harrassed in the streets, in restaurants and other public places (by other citizens, not by the authorities).

Also, a journalist who blogged about the event for German NDR said something along the lines of: "It was a great show and all that, but most of us journalists and artists agree it's an even better feeling lo leave this country again. The air of violence and oppression is new to the regular followers of the ESC circus and doesn't match the happy and liberal image the Russians tried to stage for us. We are very much looking forward to Norway, a country that, compared to this years host, looks warm and bright and sunny."

Ah, how romantic, sounds almost nostalgic about the days of the Evil Empire(tm)... Except that he seems to have visited a different city. While it is true that the Moscow government routinely shoots itself in the foot by dispersing "unwanted" demonstrations, I have no idea where that guy found "the air of violence and oppression". Maybe he shouldn't have bought dope from that shady guy on the street, however cheap it was.

Meanwhile, gay pride parade in St Petersburg went through without a hitch,

http://lenta.ru/news/2009/05/17/parade/

pretty much confirming the fact that it is cheaper and easier to just let poor gays do whatever they want to do, as long as it does not disturb public peace.

That's very interesting, so the Moscow crackdown may be more to do with the Moscow local government rather than the Russian national government?

Correct, especially given city mayor's vocal opposition to gays.

That isn't really being reported properly in foreign media.

The problem is perhaps that when people hear "Moscow did this" they assume it means the national government, but from what you are saying it sounds like it's more to do with just one branch of local government.

Krisse, there is a lot of things going on in Russia that are not being properly reported in foreign media. It is much easier to paint the place full of the "air of violence and oppression" and most foreign readers won't notice a thing, feeling better about their own "unoppressed" existence. The reality is not this black and white of course, and it has got a lot of weird nuances.

Again, probably both

The mayor of Moscow is known to be radically anti-gay - more so than the country as such. You may remember gay demonstrations in Moscow from past years that ended in violence and blood, even a member of the German parliament (Volker Beck) was beaten up and arrested in 2007 when he went to support gays in Moscow. (Pictures showing his face covered with blood were in the front pages of every paper back then...)

He (the mayor) actually warned gay Eurovision fans at a Eurovision event in December 2008: "Don't come to Moscow. You are not welcome here."

For the ESC, though, the order to keep everything "clean and proper" was most probably given by the Kremlin. For the third time now I refer to the Austrian journalist who was interviewed by a magazine (I should finally tell her name: Susanne Scholl). She said that not only are authorities prepared to cope with gay rights activists should they dare to show up (the interview was given before the demonstration), but also they'd removed everything else that's "unwanted" and would not fit the image of Russia they plan to sell... like a number of homeless who were transported to a place outside of Moskow.

They invested a lot of money, you see... The show was ridiculously expensive. (I don't have the exact figures: ORF reported 30 Mio Euros, ARD said 42 Mio Euros, one press release said 35 Mio Euros, another 24 Mio.....).
What they want to do - actually, what almost every host country wanted to do in the past years - is sell an image of their country. They know they have 100 million viewers worldwide and get a lot of media attention in the week before the show. Everything has to be right. You don't spend millions of Euros for nothing. You want something in return. And you don't want to make mistakes.

Putin himself went to check everything at the rehearsals. It was important.

So whatever the local city authorities did - maybe it wasn't an explicit order by the Russian government, but it certainly wasn't against their will. They knew there would be lots of gay men (and gay journalists) in town, they knew Russian gay activists would try to make use of the international media attention, and I very much doubt the mayor of Moscow didn't talk to the Russian government about what to do in case of a demonstration.

Mass media are exactly in the same position than Eurovision groups: if you are too good and serious in your profession you won't get the vote of the audience. Most people in front of a TV want simple and somehow predictable stories touching their feelings more than their deeper opions (or lack of).

That's possibly why the journalism seems to be better on late night low-rated news programmes, they know there's no audience anyway so they might as well do their job properly.

When I was still at the university, I was a member of a (then illegal) group fighting for gay rights. (Homosexuality was illegal in Austria until 1971. Being member of a gay organization and providing certain kinds of information about homosexuality remained illegal until 1996.)

Some friends went to jail or were blackmailed. Many lost their jobs or businesses without much of a chance to get a foot on the ground again because, even without going to jail, a criminal record simply doesn't look good when applying for a job.

I know I was observed by the police in those days. We could see them when they took pictures of our meetings from the most ridiculous places.

It wasn't a nice time, but some things you have to do. (Although it was never as bad as what we see in Moscow... there never was physical violence and blood.)

Sadly, we didn't get much international support back then. While most other (Western-)European countries had much more liberal laws at that time, public awareness and media support was a different issue. It simply wasn't regarded a matter of human rights. Nobody cared whether the fags went to jail in that yodelling country or not.

A lot has changed since then, and I can at least say I was part of those who pushed things. (Had there been a karma system, I'd probably gotten a few points for designing flyers, doing editorial work and writing articles for a bi-monthly paper, being a regular at a counseling hotline, founder of the first online information service ever in our country, and giving talks at public events of politically interested groups.)

So that was then.

Today, I see these things happening in Russia. I read the blogs, I chat with people, I read the websites of the now legal organisations I used to be a member of to stay informed. I am informed! Dammit!

I'm angry and feel helpless, but at the same time with satisfaction and pride I see how the public reacts, how the media react. This is more than 1000 miles away, but still there's an uproar in the same media that only a little more than 10 years ago completely ignored what was going on in their own country.

That's a good thing.

And then I read:

Reading this about exactly the media that finally, after all these years, care and dare,... Reading it in the context of an interview given by Susanne Scholl, who works as a correspondent for our public national broadcaster in Moskow since 1991 and is certainly not the one to deliver simple and predictable stories... Is it necessary to belittle what the activists go through when they're arrested? Is it necessary to question the truth of Volker Beck being wounded? These are not simple, superficial "stories touching feelings more than deeper opions". - There's nobody denying it happens! Even the Russian administration doesn't, they only try to justify it on moral grounds.

I don't see the point of such a statement. This not a topic you discuss in theory like UI design and browser engines. This is about people's real lives... and scars.