Russia wants to label the gay rights movement as ‘extremist’
In recent years, LGBTQ people in Russia have lived under increasing fear as the Kremlin has stepped up measures to restrict the rights of gay and transgender people, coupled with the repressive search for “internal enemies” during the war in Ukraine.
In the latest threat, the Justice Department will seek a court order Thursday to declare the international gay rights movement an “extremist organization.”
Gay rights activists and other experts say a positive ruling would put homosexuals and their organizations under threat of criminal prosecution at any time for something as simple as displaying the rainbow flag or endorsing the statement “Gay rights are human rights. ”
That prospect has heightened fear and anxiety in the country’s already beleaguered gay communities.
“It is not the first time we have been targeted, but at the same time it is another blow,” said Alexander Kondakov, a Russian sociologist at University College Dublin who studies the intersection of justice and security for LGBTQ communities. “You are already labeled as foreign, as bad, as a source of propaganda, and now you are labeled as an extremist – and the next step is terrorist.”
President Vladimir V. Putin has tried to portray the troubled, protracted war he started as a fight to preserve “Russian traditional values.” To this end, gay communities are often portrayed as a potential Trojan horse for the Wes. And the lawsuit comes months before Mr Putin is expected to use what he calls his defense of Russian values as a pillar of his campaign in the March 2024 presidential election.
The government, which filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court on November 17 seeking to label the gay rights movement as extremist, is likely to prevail.
Although a court ruling in favor of the measure would not criminalize homosexuality and would most likely have no impact on the daily lives of gays and transgender people, experts say, it would make the work of all LGBTQ organizations, as well as any political activity, untenable to make.
It could be used to impose prison terms of six to 10 years on gay rights activists, their lawyers or others involved in any form of public effort.
The requested designation is also written in a typically ambiguous manner so that it can be exploited by virtually anyone to label a gay person as an extremist, such as a provincial law enforcement officer hostile to gays or neighbors who covet a gay couple’s apartment, experts said.
Until it becomes clear how the measure will be implemented, it is difficult to advise homosexuals in Russia on how to change their lives, said Igor Kochetkov, founder of the Russian LGBT Network, an umbrella organization.
Critics say it’s unusual to use a designation intended to target specific organizations against something more amorphous, like an international movement. However, there are some precedents, most notably two domestic campaigns seen as encouraging youth violence.
Moreover, the Kremlin has increasingly labeled organizations that it does not like as ‘extremist’. This includes the opposition group organized by Aleksei A. Navalny; the Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose presence in Russia is opposed by the Russian Orthodox Church; and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, which is accused by the Russian government of spreading Russophobia.
In Russia, measures against LGBTQ groups began in earnest after 2012, when Putin returned to the presidency. In 2013, Russia passed a law banning “gay propaganda” aimed at minors, expanding it in 2022 to include anything that, it says, smacks of endorsing “non-traditional relationships and pedophilia” among all Russians.
Last summer, authorities began issuing fines for what they considered such propaganda in films and television series online. Then in July, Mr. Putin signed a law banning medical gender transitions, or changing genders, on official documents.
There is a long tradition of countries at war singling out minority groups, especially homosexuals, for persecution, such as Nazi Germany. The effort to build support for the war inevitably involves identifying external and internal enemies, and in Russia, generally negative attitudes toward homosexuals are consistent with this effort, says Alexandra Arkhipova, a social anthropologist who has studied the ripple effects of the war. on Russian society.
A 2016 survey found that a majority of Russians “view homosexual minorities as a form of disease brought by the collective West,” she said.
This attitude is especially prevalent among Russians over the age of 65, who are also Putin’s main supporters. They identify with his promise to return to 1970s Russia, when the idea of gay rights and fluid sexuality did not exist publicly, she said.
Some Russians applauded the latest move.
“The days of the rainbow are coming to an end,” crowed a commenter on a channel on a Telegram messaging app, Operation Z, a reference to the war in Ukraine. It was accompanied by a clapping hands emoji.
Despite all the measures, Russia continues to insist that it is not targeting its gay minority. In recent weeks, Putin has said at a cultural forum in St. Petersburg that gays and transgender people are “part of society,” while mocking what he called a trend in the West to give public prizes only to those who celebrate homosexuality. community.
Days before the lawsuit was announced, a deputy justice minister, Andrei Loginov, testified before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that in Russia “the rights of LGBT people are protected,” saying that “curbing public demonstrations of non- traditional sexual relationships or preferences are not a form of disapproval for them.”
The proposed designation opens the door to the kind of legal and verbal gymnastics the Kremlin often uses to deny that it is persecuting a sexual minority group, Ms. Arkhipova said. “They can say to everyone: we don’t persecute homosexual people; gay people are fine – we just persecute extremists,” she said.
Milana Mazaeva reporting contributed.