Russian lawmakers on Thursday adopted amendments significantly expanding the scope of a law banning the “promotion” of the LGBT community, amid a Kremlin crackdown associated with its military offensive in Ukraine.
This new law, which is an improved version of a much-criticized 2013 law that banned the “promotion of LGBT people” to minors, now prohibits the “promotion of non-traditional sexual relationships” to everyone, in the media, on the internet, in books and movies.
This broad application, as well as the free interpretation in the light of the vague concept of the word “promotion”, raises fears of a growing repression against the LGBT community in Russia, which is already subject to severe discrimination.
“The promotion of non-traditional sexual relations is prohibited (…) and the promotion of pedophilia and gender reassignment has been banned,” said Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the lower house of parliament (the State Duma), in a communicated. “The fines amount to 10 million rubles” (about 160,000 euros) for violators, he added.
For the text to become law, it still needs to be ratified by the upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, and signed by President Vladimir Putin.
“We will protect people from this absurd law,” Natalia Solovyova, head of the Rossiiskaya LGBT-Set non-governmental organization, told AFP.
The consequences of this new law are currently vague and human rights activists fear it could be used arbitrarily.
According to Solovyova, her organization expects “growing pressure on activists, more websites being blocked (…) and increased censorship in the media, cinema and other sectors”.
As for Delia Gafurova, president of the non-governmental organization Sfera for the defense of the rights of the LGBT community, she believes that “the law is discriminatory in nature, and this is quite evident”.
He found the Russian state’s allegations “disturbing” as “LGBT people are a Western invention due to outside interference”.
The European Union said in a statement Thursday that it “deplores these repressive measures,” saying they “will stoke homophobia and strengthen the severe crackdown on all critical and alternative speech” in Russia.
The vote on this new law comes after years of repression against the LGBT community, as the Kremlin presents itself as a defender of “traditional” values in the face of a Western world that is portrayed as heading towards decadence.
Volodin believed that this law “will protect our children and the future of this country from the darkness spread by the United States and European countries. We have our traditions and our values.”
Activist Delia Gafurova has called on the Russian authorities not to use the LGBT community as an “ideological comparison tool”.
“We simply exist,” he said, “there is nothing wrong with us and nothing that needs to be hidden. We cannot be denied our voice.”
Last month, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said he was “deeply” concerned about the tightening of LGBT law in Russia, after the State Duma voted on the text in first reading.
This law also raises concerns in the world of cinema and literature, which fears the strengthening of the already severe censorship.
