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Russia’s Lower House on Thursday adopted a law banning “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations”, pedophilia and gender reassignment in the media, the Internet, advertising, literature and cinema.
“The promotion of non-traditional sexual relationships is prohibited.” The Russian Parliament approved this Thursday, November 24, a bill that extends the ban on so-called “LGBTI propaganda.”
The move represents a tightening of an existing 2013 law, which makes it a crime to inform children about being LGBTI. “A ban on the promotion of pedophilia and sex change has also been introduced,” the State Duma – or Russian Lower House – said in a statement, after adopting the law in its third and final reading.
considerable fines
According to the new text, which still needs the approval of the Upper House of Parliament and that of President Vladimir Putin, any action or information that is considered an attempt to promote homosexuality – whether in public, online or in movies, books or advertising – could incur a hefty fine.
And these reach up to 400,000 rubles (6,600 dollars) for individuals, and up to 5 million rubles (82,100 dollars) for legal entities. Foreigners for their part could face 15 days of arrest and subsequent expulsion.
Likewise, the law establishes the prohibition of issuing a distribution certificate to any film that contains materials that promote “non-traditional” relationships and sexual preferences. “People – authors, publishers, just people – will think twice before mentioning anything related to the LGBTI community,” political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann said in reaction in an interview from Germany.
The legislative background that increases the climate of fear in the LGBTI community
Previously, only the promotion of LGBTI lifestyles directed at children was prohibited. But the new bill also prohibits the “demonstration” of LGBTI behavior to children, and expands its scope to gender reassignment.
Therefore, LGBTIQ+ associations and human rights organizations such as Amnesty International pointed out that the amended legislation will increase homophobia with the permission of the Russian state, and that it will reach a whole new level.
“The new ‘gay propaganda’ bill not only blatantly deprives LGBTI people of their right to freedom of expression and endorses their discrimination, it is also likely to lead to an increase in violent attacks and other crimes motivated by hate against them,” said Amnesty International’s Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Marie Struthers.
In another concern, legal experts also claimed that the vagueness of the bill’s language leaves room for law enforcement to interpret it as broadly as they wish, leaving members of the LGBTI community in a state of even greater uncertainty.
For example, Kseniya Mikhailova, from the LGBTI support group Vykhod (“Coming Out”), said that same-sex kissing in public could be considered an offense. She added that same-sex couples would start to fear that their children would be taken from them, claiming that they were demonstrating an LGBTI lifestyle to them.
And it is that the authorities have already used the current law to prevent gay pride marches and arrest gay rights activists. Russia actually ranks 46 out of 49 European countries in terms of inclusion of the LGBTIQ+ community, according to the watchdog ILGA-Europe.
An ideological war against the West
For their part, the 400 deputies who participated in its drafting see the law as a “solution that will protect our children, the future of the country, from the darkness that spreads across the United States and European states.”
That rhetoric follows that of the Russian president, who has made the fight against homosexuals a cornerstone of his domestic agenda. In a late-October speech in Moscow, Putin lashed out at Western culture: “The West can do whatever it wants with gay parades, but it shouldn’t make the same rules for Russia.”
The former agent of the KGB (the main security agency of the extinct Soviet Union) has tried on numerous occasions to associate his regime with what he considers “successes of the Soviet era”, repressing more and more the rights and freedoms achieved after the disintegration from the USSR.
The response of the European Union
The European Union regretted these new repressive measures on Thursday, considering that “these legislative changes feed homophobia and further deepen the harsh repression of any critical and alternative discourse in the context of Russia’s illegal, unprovoked and unjustified war of aggression against Ukraine, which the EU continues to condemn in the strongest possible terms,” the spokesperson said.
“The European Union stands in solidarity with Russian citizens who are prevented from exercising their human rights,” they added from the Union.
With EFE, AFP, Reuters and local media
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