The FINANCIAL — Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday ruled to designate LGBTQ activists as “extremists” and ban their activities, in the latest move against expressions of sexual orientations and genders in Russia, Deutsche Well reported.
The Justice Ministry had requested the recognition of “the international LGBT social movement” as extremist and to ban its activities.
Both the court and the Justice Ministry have referred to a “movement” in their statements.
The ministry filed the lawsuit earlier this month, saying that authorities had identified “signs and manifestations of an extremist nature” by an LGBTQ “movement” operating in Russia.
In its statement announcing the lawsuit, the ministry claimed that such activism included “incitement of social and religious discord.” However, it offered no details or evidence.
‘Non existent organization’
Max Olenichev, a human rights lawyer who works with the Russian LGBTQ community, noted the ministry’s odd phrasing in remarks to The Associated Press (AP) news agency before the hearing.
“Despite the fact that the Justice Ministry demands to label a nonexistent organization — ‘the international civic LGBT movement’ — extremist, in practice it could happen that the Russian authorities, with this court ruling at hand, will enforce it against LGBTQ+ initiatives that work in Russia, considering them a part of this civic movement,” Olenichev said.
The Supreme Court held the hearings behind closed doors, and there was no defendant in the case.
According to the AP, some LGBTQ activists had tried to become a party to the lawsuit on the basis that it concerns their rights, but were rejected by the court.
Gay activist flees Russia for Germany
Russian crackdown on LGBTQ rights
In 2013, Russia adopted its first legislation restricting LGBTQ rights. Since then, the country passed several laws to clamp down on such rights.
Last year, the Russian parliament passed a so-called “gay propaganda” law that effectively made it illegal to refer to LGBTQ relationships in any kind of positive light.
Lawmakers also passed a law earlier this year to prohibit gender-transitioning procedures and gender-affirming care.
The legislation banned changing one’s gender in official documents and public records, and amended Russia’s Family Code by listing gender change as a reason to annul a marriage.
Following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia liberalized some of its anti-LGBT laws. Most notably, homosexual relationships were decriminalized in 1993. Transgender Russians have also been allowed to change their legal gender on identity documents since 1997, although there are many obstacles to the process and invasive surgical requirements remain in place. Despite these liberalization trends during the immediate post-Soviet period, in recent years, Russian authorities have routinely denied permits for Pride parades, intimidated and arrested LGBT activists and condoned anti-LGBT statements by government officials. ILGA-Europe, the European section of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, rates Russia as the least protective country in Europe for LGBT citizens, ranking it 49th out of the 49 European countries rated in its annual survey.
In June 2013, the Russian duma in Moscow passed a new law banning the “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships”to minors. The new federal law is closely related to several regional laws that were already on the books, all of which seek to penalize “propaganda” of homosexuality, generally with the intent of “protecting” minors. The city of Sochi, which is the site of the upcoming Winter Olympics, has one of those regional laws in place. And while the regional laws are not uniform, like the new federal law, they all tend to advance vague definitions of propaganda that lend themselves to the targeting and ongoing persecution of the country’s LGBT community. The language of this new law focuses on “non-traditional” sexual relationships, to contrast with “traditional values” or “traditional family” language that Russia is promoting at the UN to oppose positive statements supporting the human rights of LGBT people.
The federal anti-LGBT propaganda law, as signed by President Putin on June 29, entered into force in Russia on June 30 of this year. (The official version in Russian is published here.) In the federal law, propaganda is defined as: “distribution of information that is aimed at the formation among minors of nontraditional sexual attitudes, attractiveness of non- traditional sexual relations, misperceptions of the social equivalence of traditional and non-traditional sexual relations, or enforcing information about non-traditional sexual relations that evokes interest to such relations . . . .”
The new law sets administrative fines for LGBT propaganda at 4,000 to 5,000 rubles for individuals (about $120 – $150 U.S. dollars) and up to 800,000 to 1 million rubles for NGOs, corporations or other legal entities (about $24,000 – $30,000 U.S. dollars). More severe administrative fines are allowed for propaganda transmitted via the Internet or other media networks or by a foreign citizen. Foreigners are also subject to 15 days of prison and deportation from Russia.
It is too early to tell how aggressively the new federal law will be enforced, but several government officials have warned of a robust intent to enforce the legislation, including during the upcoming Sochi Olympics, and LGBT activists are themselves intent on challenging the law on human rights grounds. Moreover, while the law suggests that only information directed at children should expose an individual or an organization to liability, prosecutions under similar laws in the regions have not dwelled on this nexus to children and the federal law’s heightened focus on the internet, where minors have an opportunity to view such information, suggest that the law could be applied broadly and with little regard to any notion of child protection. LGBT citizens and activists in Russia are increasingly concerned, as this law is being implemented at a time and in an environment of increasing violence and hatred of LGBT individuals and as LGBT defenders are being subjected to fines and prosecutions as “foreign agents.”
History of LGBT in Russia
In 1989, before the collapse of the USSR, 31 percent of the Russian population said in polls that homosexuals should be executed, and 32 percent said they should be isolated. Only 12 percent said they should be left alone. The figures are shifting slightly, however: in 1994, 23 percent in a poll said homosexuals should be killed, 24 percent said they should be isolated, and 29 percent said they should be left alone.
Medieval Russia was apparently very tolerant of homosexuality, with foreign visitors to the country surprised by displays of affection between homosexuals. The first laws against homosexuals in Russia came about in the 18th century, under the reign of Peter the Great, but only in military statutes for soldiers.
In 1832, the criminal code included Article 995, which stated that “muzhelozhstvo”, or men lying with men, was a criminal act punishable by exile to Siberia for up to 5 years. Men lying with men was interpreted by courts as meaning anal sex. Application of the laws was rare, and the turn of the century found a relaxation of these laws and a general growing of tolerance and visibility.
In the wake of the October Revolution, the Bolshevik regime decriminalized homosexuality. The Bolsheviks rewrote the constitution and “produced two Criminal Codes – in 1922 and 1926 – and an article prohibiting homosexual sex was left off both.” The new Communist Party government removed the old laws regarding sexual relations, effectively legalising homosexual and transgender activity within Russia, although it remained illegal in other territories of the Soviet Union, and the homosexuals in Russia were still persecuted and sacked from their jobs. Under Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union recriminalized homosexuality in a decree signed in 1933. The new Article 121, which punished “muzhelozhstvo” with imprisonment for up to 5 years, saw raids and arrests. Female homosexuals were sent to mental institutions. The decree was part of a broader campaign against “deviant” behavior and “Western degeneracy”. Discrimination against LGBT individuals persisted in the Soviet era, and homosexuality was not officially declassified as a mental illness until 1999.
Soviet Article 121 was often commonly used to extend prison sentences and to control dissidents. Among those imprisoned were the well-known film director Sergei Paradjanov and the poet Gennady Trifonov. Under Mikhail Gorbachev’s administration in the late 1980s, the first gay organization came into being. The Moscow Gay & Lesbian Alliance was headed by Yevgeniya Debryanskaya and Roman Kalinin, who became the editor of the first officially registered gay newspaper, Tema. The fall of the USSR accelerated the progress of the gay movement in Russia. Gay publications and plays appeared. In 1993, a new Russian Criminal Code was signed, without Article 121. Men who had been imprisoned began to be released.
At a press conference on 1 February 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin was asked for his opinion in the midst of a row over the decision by Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov to ban a Gay pride parade in Moscow, called Moscow Pride. Vladimir Putin said: “With regards to what the heads of regions say, I normally try not to comment. I don’t think it is my business. My relation to gay parades and sexual minorities in general is simple – it is connected with my official duties and the fact that one of the country’s main problems is demographic. But I respect and will continue to respect personal freedom in all its forms, in all its manifestations.
In 2013, Putin signed the so-called “Gay propaganda law”, after it had been passed in the State Duma by an overwhelming majority. The law prohibits disseminating “propaganda” about homosexuality to minors.
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