Gay russia

Russia Declares LGBTQ+ Advocacy “Extremist,” Threatens the Lives of All LGBTQ+ People in Their Country

In response, Human Rights Campaign’s Director of Global Partnerships, Jean Freedberg, released the following statement:

“This decision by Russia’s highest court is a reprehensible display of repression in a nation where LGBTQ+ people already fear for their lives. The hearing took place in secret, sealed off from public scrutiny and closed to those who wished to speak in defense of LGBTQ+ people. There is no justice in this decision, there is no justice in governing based on dread , and there is no justice in a land that is intent on criminalizing people on the basis of who they are or who they love. We stand in solidarity with the Homosexual community, and we will continue to fight alongside them for freedom and equality.”

This ruling is just the latest in Russia’s efforts to shut down the human rights movement, using vague and undefined “extremist” language, and will have a significant impact on the LGBTQ+ society. Russia’s Supreme Court has not defined the so-called “international LGBT public movement,” instead leaving it up to other officials to translate the language

Gay & Under Attack

Reggie Yates gets up close and personal with three very different communities in contemporary Russia. By living with them for a week, he explores what it's like for young people living here, 24 years after the fall of the Soviet Union.

A year after the introduction of the controversial anti-propaganda law, Reggie finds out what life is really like for young people in what has been described as the hardest place in Europe to be gay. He travels to St Petersburg for Queerfest, a ten-day arts and culture get-together for the LGBT community. Reggie spends time on both sides of the battle lines - with the Queerfest team as they face the daily defend to keep their festival open, and the homophobes who want to look it closed.

He also meets Dayra, a juvenile lesbian viciously stabbed and left for dead by homophobes, and activist Kiril who is still fighting back and who shows Reggie how Putin's repressive laws make it almost impossible to protest without risk of arrest. Ivan and Nusrulla are a young gay couple very much in love, but who are so scared of the consequences of coming out that they have made up a pretend girlfriend - and have a huge judgment to make abou

Escape or die: The deadly crackdown on LGBTQ+ lives in Dagestan

Only one of the police officers was in uniform, and after displaying his ID, he told Yusuf, who is using an alias, that he had to move with them to the police station.

“I didn’t understand what was going on. I didn’t brawl back or scream for help because my relatives could hear me. They drove me from Izberbash to Mahachkala.”

Dagestan is part of the North Caucasus region in southern Russia. Part of the region is Chechnya, a semi-autonomous republic notorious for the violent persecution of LGBT people, with neighbouring republics such as Dagestan and Ingushetia not fairing any better.

In the police station, they interrogated Yusuf, asking him if he knew ‘Matvey.’ Matvey Volodin – a gay blogger from Moscow – was allegedly lured by police in Dagestan and forced to ‘honeytrap’ queer men in Dagestan for the police to arrest. “I said that I knew nothing about him. I hadn’t met him or contacted him online. I said that I had only heard that identify from friends,” said Yusuf.

They then began asking about his friends - how he met them and how extended he had famous them. They made him unlock his phone and scroll throu

Russian court bans 'LGBT movement'

Steve Rosenberg

Russia editor, Moscow

Reuters

Russia's Supreme Court has declared what it calls "the international LGBT public movement" an extremist organisation and banned its activities across the country.

The ruling was prompted by a motion from the justice ministry, even though no such organisation exists as a legal entity.

The hearing was held behind closed doors, but reporters were allowed in to hear the court's decision. Nobody from "the defendant's side" had been present, the court said.

Russia's constitution was changed three years ago to make it clear that marriage means a union between a man and a woman. Same-sex unions are not recognised here.

Ahead of the decree, I asked Sergei Troshin, a municipal deputy in St Petersburg who came out as gay last year, what effect it would have.

"I think this will mean that anyone whom the state considers an LGBT activist could receive a long prison sentence for 'participating in an extremist organisation'," he said.

"For the organiser of such a community, the prison term will be even longer.

In wartime, focus on ‘traditional values’ imperils Russia’s LGBTQ community

In his early 20s, Mikhail* (not his real name), a gay man from the city of Ufa in Russia, was doing what he loved: flamboyant performances.

“I was going on tour, to competitions; I met new artists and planned that kingly would be the grandfather to my life,” he told Al Jazeera.

Two bar workers arrested in Russia’s first LGBTQ ‘extremism’ case

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Malaysian court orders return of Swatch watches seized over LGBTQ designs

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At this signal, Mikhail said, he lived his experience openly and had not experienced much overt hostility from the day-to-day general. But in the last few years, things began to change.

“Concerns arose in the club industry,” he said. “Restrictions were placed on the numbers of Ukrainian performers, a ban was placed on mentioning topics related to LGBT. In everyday being, there was simply eternal anxiety.”

The terminal straw came when police targeted the venue Mikhail worked in for a raid.

“I was caught up in raids more than once, but my last raid was the roughest and m