23 Mar 12 | Russia
Saint Petersburg authorities have surpassed their colleagues throughout Russia in persecuting gay community by passing a local law that actually forbids any LGBT activities, including pride parades and human rights activism, and by planning to make this ban Russia-wide.
Last week a scandalous law “against promotion of homosexuality” came into force in Saint-Petersburg. It stipulates fines up to 500 thousand roubles (£10,782 GBP) for any activities that can be referred to as “public propaganda of homosexualism, lesbianism, bisexuality and transgenderism among minors”. According to Saint-Petersburg lawmakers, such propaganda means mass and unregulated distribution of information which might prove that “traditional and non-traditional relationship are socially equal”.
Human rights activists have expressed numerous concerns over the law as any public move of gay community may accidentally be seen, heard or read by minors, which means that any public move may be punished by fines — potentially disastrous for financially stretched gay rights groups.
The latest concern has been expressed by Madonna who is coming to perform in Saint Petersburg in August. On her Facebook page she wrote that she will “speak up for the gay community, to support the gay community and to give strength and inspiration to anyone who is or feels oppressed”. She called Saint-Petersburg law a “ridiculous atrocity” and promised to speak about it during her show in the city.
The law author — Vladimir Putin’s United Russia deputy Vitaly Milonov — said Madonna and her concert organisers are most likely to face fines and that he “will have to attend her concert to monitor the concert’s moral content”. Previously Milonov mentioned he had planned forbid Rammstein concerts in Saint-Petersburg.
Together with his colleagues Vitaly Milonov is planning to introduce a bill to the Russian State Duma banning “homosexual propaganda” across Russia. “United Russia” has a majority in State Duma, and rights activists fear that such federal law could pass.
Today “antihomosexual” laws, similar to the one passed in Saint-Petersburg, already exist in Ryazan, Archangelsk and Kostroma regions, but none of them has caused such a wide and scandalous response from civil society yet.
The passing of the law in Saint Petersburg was marked with a number of protest actions in Russia. The European Parliament has condemned the law, stating it “violates the freedom of expression regarding sexual orientation”, which is against European Convention on Human Rights. The US State Department has appealed to Russian authorities calling them to respect the rights of gay community in Russia instead of violating them.
The Kremlin doesn’t seem to take these statements seriously, and nor do Russia’s federal TV channels. TV remains the most popular media for most Russians, and channels don’t comply with objectivity rules when covering topics concerning LGBT people. That is why some 75 per cent of Russian citizens, according to SuperJob research centre survey, support the law against homosexual propaganda.
None of Russian cities has ever held a sanctioned gay pride. All were unauthorized and ended up with their participants beaten by aggressive ultranationalists and religious activists or arrested by police.
The only sanctioned action when LGBT people could march through the city with flags and placards was a 4 February march against Vladimir Putin’s return to the Kremlin in Moscow. Tens of thousands people marched through one of the central streets in columns of diverse opposition and civil movements, including the gay community. And even there, during an event which was meant to celebrate democratic values and freedom of expression, gays received tellings-off and disrespectful jokes from some protesters.
Among all the repressed minorities in Russia LGBT community is one of the most vulnerable, usually causing less solidarity, than others.
21 Mar 12 | Russia
Opposition activists have sued Russian television station NTV after the channel aired the documentary “Anatomy of Protest”, which claimed people were paid to participate in recent mass protest rallies.
Eleven years ago thousands of people gathered in Moscow in support of Russian private NTV channel, protesting against state-owned Gazprom’s subsidiary — Gazprom Media Holding — buying it from media tycoon Vladimir Gusinsky. He had faced pressure from Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin to sell NTV (as well as “Echo of Moscow” radio station). That rally didn’t influence the transaction; NTV was passed into the hands of Gazprom-Media, which later fell under control of Yury Kovalchuk who is considered a close friend of Putin.
Eleven years have passed and Vladimir Putin has returned to power, ignoring mass protests against his third presidential run. Now NTV is the focus of another rally. This time some 300 people gathered near Ostankino TV tower on Sunday, protesting against NTV policy and particularly the documentary, which was aired twice last week suggesting people received money and cookies for protesting against Vladimir Putin.
Many of the protesters held placards reading “NTV lies”, flowers and old broken televisions “to mark NTV’s funeral as mass media”. Dozens of people were arrested, including opposition leaders Sergey Udaltsov and Boris Nemtsov. All were released by the following morning.
The arrests angered many, with complaints on NTV’s Facebook page, and “NTV Lies” hashtag trending on Twitter.
The Democratic Choice opposition movement has filed two lawsuits against NTV. One is for libel — the movement is demanding NTV withdraw statements in the documentary about opposition leaders hiring people to attend rallies and aiming to arrange provocations and bloody revolution in Russia.
The other lawsuit relates to Democratic Choice authors’ rights — the documentary included a video showing citizens of Kenya attending a rally in support of Vladimir Putin, who didn’t seem to understand the Russian language and could not explain at all why they supported Putin.
“Democratic Choice” activists claim the video was shot by them to show that Putin’s assessments of how many people actually supported him on rallies were controversial. The NTV documentary claimed that the Kenyans interviewed might have been hired by opposition activists.
A libel lawsuit against NTV was filed by politician Boris Nadezhdin, and opposition leader Boris Nemtsov has called for a boycott of all NTV programmes. Bloggers have called on advertisers including Proсter & Gamble to pull the plug on the company. The company responded, saying it respects freedom of expression, but prefers to stay out of politics and doesn’t see itself as a party in this conflict.
Expert magazine editor-in-chief Valery Fadeev, who appeared in the NTV documentary, said his words were taken out of context. He added that not only his magazine, but the whole Expert publishing house is ending any cooperation with NTV.
Gazprom Media Holding denied the allegations, issuing a statement from the group head Nikolay Senkevich.
Senkevich said that NTV “covers each aspect of social life” and that calls to boycott the channel go against democratic principles. Andrey Isaev of Putin’s United Russia party called the opposition reaction to the documentary “hysterical”.
Russia’s journalists are divided by the controversial documentary. To some, working on NTV is still seen as a normal journalistic activity, as far as it doesn’t concern making Kremlin propaganda movies about Russian opposition. To others, it is no longer acceptable.
20 Mar 12 | Azerbaijan News, Europe and Central Asia, Index Index, minipost
Two musicians and the leader of a youth organisation were detained by police during a sanctioned rally in Azerbaijan. On Saturday, Camal Ali, the front-man of popular band Bulustan, used profane language to criticise Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev during a performance at the youth rally in Baku. Organisers were angered by his profanities, and he and fellow band member Natiq Kamilov were detained by police, along with Etibar Salmanli, the head of the Nida youth organization. The three protesters were badly beaten by police before being detained.
15 Mar 12 | News and features
In a “repressive” decision, Moscow city court refuse to release two members of punk feminist group Pussy Riot. Elena Vlasenko reports
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