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The Russian parliament has again passed a law banning the dissemination of information on homosexuality and bisexuality. Sharing this information with children has been illegal in Russia for nearly a decade. Parliament has now extended this 2013 “gay propaganda law” to all ages.
Anyone who does or shares what is seen as “promoting” information about LGBTI people runs the risk of a fine of over €6,000. This applies to expressions through television, books, commercials and online. For organizations and companies, the fine can amount to around 80,000 euros. Foreigners risk fifteen days of detention. They can also be expelled from the country.
The Russian human rights organization LGBT Network sees the extension of the law as “another attempt to discriminate against and humiliate the LGBTI community”. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights earlier said the new law “violates international human rights norms and standards”.
“In Russian”
Russian lawmakers present the law as a way to protect their country from “un-Russian” norms and values, which they say are promoted by the West. For example, parliamentarian Aleksandr Chinshtejn, who is one of the architects of the law, calls LGBTI issues “an element of the hybrid war, and in this hybrid war we have to protect our values, our society and our children”.
The law is in line with this the rhetoric of war that Russia is spreading about the “special military operation” in Ukraine.
The law is another step in the suppression of queer rights in Russia. Human rights organizations have been expressing their concerns about this for years. After the law was introduced in 2013, it became impossible for protesters to legally demonstrate for LGBT rights, he writes Amnesty International. There are also penalties for sharing photos of lesbian or gay couples.
Last month, Bytedance, the Chinese parent company of Tiktok, was fined 3 million rubles, the equivalent of about 50,000 euros, for “promoting videos with LGBTI themes”. Publishers are also ordered by Russian authorities to withdraw from sale any books that contain information that the government considers “LGBTI propaganda”.
Even in the EU
Incidentally, there are also countries in the European Union where laws and resolutions have been introduced in recent years that resemble the Russian “gay propaganda law”. So it is in Hungary banned from 2021 ‘promote’ sexual and gender diversity among children.
In Poland, 100 municipalities declared themselves “LGBT-free” through resolutions, which meant that no “LGBT ideology” could be spread. Four of the five provinces withdrew these resolutions last year, under pressure from the EU.
