New Russian Anti-LGBTQ Law

[PeterRS]

So now Russia has gone even further in its actions against the LGBT community. On Thursday a landmark ruling by the country's Supreme Court declared what it terms "the international LGBTQ movement" an extremist movement and banned all its activities in the country.

The landmark ruling on Thursday is set to further erode the rights of Russia’s LGBTQ community, who have faced an intensifying crackdown in recent years, as President Vladimir Putin seeks to shore up his image as defender of traditional moral values against the liberal West . . .

Under Russian legislation, an organisation designated as extremist faces immediate dissolution, and its leaders face charges of up to 10 years in prison, according to the UN Human Rights Chief . . .

In recent years, the Kremlin has introduced or expanded on a raft of anti-LGBTQ laws, a conservative shift that has intensified following the invasion of Ukraine. Presidential elections are due next year, with Putin widely expected to extend his rule.

In July this year, Russia passed a law banning doctors from conducting gender reassignment surgeries, except in cases related to treating congenital physiological anomalies, in children.

In December 2022, Putin signed into law a bill that expanded a ban on so-called LGBTQ “propaganda” in Russia, making it illegal for anyone to promote same-sex relationships or suggest that non-heterosexual orientations are “normal.”

The package of amendments signed by Putin included heavier penalties for anyone promoting “non-traditional sexual relations and/or preferences,” as well as gender transition.

The new law was an extension of legislation introduced in 2013, which banned the dissemination of LGBTQ-related information to minors.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/30/europe/russian-supreme-court-outlaws-the-lgbtq-community-as-extremist/index.html

 

 

[PeterRS]

Following the introduction of the new anti LGBTQ law, Russian police have been quick off the mark to raid gay clubs. The BBC has reported that several Moscow clubs were raided on Friday. Club goers had their passports/identity documents photographed. One attendee said he feared he would be "given a lengthy jail term." AP reports that a male sauna was also raided.

Police stated merely that they were looking for drugs!

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67601647

https://apnews.com/article/russia-lgbtq-nightclub-raids-crackdown-33e1b9a0110bf22dc2ebc7c42efe6335

[Moses]

2 hours ago, PeterRS said:

The BBC has reported that several Moscow clubs were raided on Friday. Club goers had their passports/identity documents photographed. One attendee said he feared he would be "given a lengthy jail term." AP reports that a male sauna was also raided.

The BBC report is incorrect - the raid was on one club in Moscow and one sauna, as well as one club in St. Petersburg. This was not the first and certainly not the last time - the police crack down on drug dealers 2-3 times a year.

Now is the period of conscription into the army for compulsory military service in training camps. Therefore, the police check passports - there must be a mark on completion of this service or on removal from such service. If the visitor is a resident of Moscow and has not served, although due to his age he should have, then his passport will be photographed without a mark and then a summons will be sent with a call to duty. During these raids, the police picked up those who did not serve in the army and did not live in Moscow.

Let me remind you: Russian laws directly prohibit the use of conscripts in military conflicts, and not on Russian territory.

As for the law on the international LGBT movement, in practice it prohibits the use of LGBT symbols - rainbow flags, emblems and badges.

Last week, at the cultural forum of the Western region of the Russian Federation, Putin directly said about LGBT “But here’s what I would like to say. I’ll say an unexpected thing. And they, too - these topics and these people - have the right to show, tell, because this too part of society. This is also how people live."

[caeron]

Russia is a shithole. I feel bad for anybody who can't get out.

[PeterRS]

1 hour ago, Moses said:

The BBC report is incorrect - the raid was on one club in Moscow and one sauna, as well as one club in St. Petersburg. This was not the first and certainly not the last time - the police crack down on drug dealers 2-3 times a year . . .

Last week, at the cultural forum of the Western region of the Russian Federation, Putin directly said about LGBT “But here’s what I would like to say. I’ll say an unexpected thing. And they, too - these topics and these people - have the right to show, tell, because this too part of society. This is also how people live."

As far as the raids being to find drugs, given the timing just a couple of days after the anti-gay legislation was passed, that has to be the joke of the week.

Also @Moses information again is incorrect. It was more than one bar/venue in Moscow. One was the dance club Malaya Yakimanka Ulitsa with more than 300 attending. But the raids were on several - all as reported by The Moscow Times and in other Russian media. One was a club near Avtozavodskaya metro station and another a men's strip club near the Polyanka metro station. But then of course @Moses never provides sources - except for once when the two he posted were in Russian and Japanese and on translation were found to have nothing to do with the subject of his post!

As for St. Petersburg, his information is also 100% misleading. The club in St. Petersburg was the long established Central Station which was not actually raised but forced to shut down on Friday after its landlord evicted the management "over the Supreme Court's ban on the LGBT community."

Also referring to @Moses second paragraph, I have listened to the exact words Putin said two weeks ago. It is 100% clear he was talking exclusively about western society, and he was laughing when he said it! His words had absolutely nothing to do with Russia and Russian society. So @Moses  is yet again trying to pull the wool over our eyes.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/12/02/moscow-police-raid-gay-clubs-after-extremist-ban-on-lgbt-community-a83297

[Travelingguy]

Gays have been persecuted with laws and without laws forever.  They have been and are executed and tortured in various societies.  Yet none of this repression eliminates homosexuality.  It just leads to horrendous suffering for those who get caught up in it.  Even the Russian government isn’t stupid enough to believe that this will have any effect on the number of gay people in their society.  They don’t care.  It is all for show.  They also don’t care about the suffering of their gay victims.  But why should we be surprised when they consistently show us how little they care for anyone except Putin and whichever oligarchs around him are currently in his good graces.  

[reader]

2 hours ago, Moses said:

 

Last week, at the cultural forum of the Western region of the Russian Federation, Putin directly said about LGBT “But here’s what I would like to say. I’ll say an unexpected thing. And they, too - these topics and these people - have the right to show, tell, because this too part of society. This is also how people live."

Yes, just don’t get caught saying anything favorable of gay rights in Russia. 🙂

[Moses]

5 hours ago, PeterRS said:

ban on the LGBT community.

Nope. High court decision is to ban "International LGBT movement"

5 hours ago, PeterRS said:

As far as the raids being to find drugs, given the timing just a couple of days after the anti-gay legislation was passed, that has to be the joke of the week.

These raids are going regularly few times per year.

5 hours ago, PeterRS said:

The club in St. Petersburg was the long established Central Station which was not actually raised but forced to shut down on Friday after its landlord evicted the management "over the Supreme Court's ban on the LGBT community."

What landlord has mutual with govt? It is private business.

Here is Central station in Moscow. The same owner. https://www.instagram.com/centralstationmsk/ there is phone number on this page. Call them and ask about closure, maybe manager speaks English.

 Here is club "Secret" https://www.instagram.com/mixclub_secret there also phone number, and even more - they have channel on Telegram with advertising and there is advertising in English for tonight https://t.me/club_secret

I will not check every club or sauna for you, but Google is working well, so everyone may check clubs.

[Travelingguy]

I find it fascinating that someone who appears to be gay and posts about hookups with university students in Moscow, would consistently defend Putin, in particular his scapegoating gay people which has been going on for more than a decade.  There are so many stories about gay Russians who have suffered horribly under Putin’s rule, either at the hands of the government or at the hands of thugs while the government turns a blind eye.

Does a gay person living in Russia, posting on gay websites daily, really think that they are safe?  And if they really do think that they are safe, are they deluded? Or does their ardent defense of the regime give them protection? Or are they deluded in thinking that their ardent defense of the regime will give them protection?  

It just makes no sense.  

I am new to this site and I have wondered if Moses is a Russian citizen who has little choice, but to live in Russia.  Or is he an ex-pat living in Russia by choice?  On Swatdee, he encouraged someone to move to Moscow for all the sexy foreign exchange students.  But what gay person or Westerner would make that choice, particularly in today’s Russia?

It all seems so risky and so dangerous.  Even oligarchs that were close to Putin at some point routinely “accidentally” fall out of windows.

I just don’t get it. I must be missing something

 

[Moses]

3 hours ago, Travelingguy said:

 Even oligarchs that were close to Putin at some point routinely “accidentally” fall out of windows.

Could you please name even one "oligarch" who fell from windows in Russia in 2000-2023?

Do you know difference btw you and me? You trust to propaganda, I trust to own eyes.

[Latbear4blk]

I would love to know about oligarchs raining from windows. However, this thread is about Russian homophobic legislation. Anything to say about that?

[Travelingguy]

Not all of these oligarchs fell out of windows in Russia.  Some suffered their fate in other countries.

But more to the point, why do you feel so comfortable dismissing the persecution of fellow gay people in Russia and why do you feel safe in Russia from persecution yourself?  

As far as propaganda goes, have you ever criticized the Russian government or Putin on this board for anything?

[Ruthrieston]

Putin is a closet queen, jealous of those who actually have the courage to come out of the closet and live their lives freely and openly when he cannot. His persecution of the gay community is all about his own issues. Sad but still unforgivable.

[PeterRS]

1 hour ago, Travelingguy said:

Not all of these oligarchs fell out of windows in Russia.  Some suffered their fate in other countries.

Oh! Russia has many ways of eliminating those it sees as some sort of threat to its leaders. There was the poison-tipped umbrella killing of a Bulgarian dissident in London. Being fair that was pre-Putin. Much more recently has been the attempted poisoning in March 2018 of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury in England by a Novichok nerve agent. It was the first known use of a military grade chemical agent on European soil since WWII. That attempted murder failed when not enough of the poison found its way into their bodily systems. But Russia was accused of attempted murder of double agent Skripal and led to the explusion of an unprecedented 153 Russian diplomats. 28 other countries agreed and all expelled Russian diplomats.

In June 2018, two British nationals were also infected with Novichok and also close to Salisbury. One died. He had found a perfume bottle in a litter bin. It was later proved this had been left by the Russians in March. The public enquiry traced the poisonings to Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. Both were later identified correctly as Russian GRU agents operating under false names. Both are part of the highly secretive Unit 29155 of the GRU. Petrov is in fact Alexander Mishkin and Boshirov as GRU Colonel Anatoliy Vladimirovich Chepiga. It was later discovered that both travelled on passports with just three digits separating the numbers. These fell within the range of a Russian military official earlier expelled from Poland for spying.

The nerve agent was identified as Russian Novichok developed by the Soviet Union in 1980 by the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons along with British laboratories. 

Vil Mayazaranov, a former Soviet scientist who had helped develop the Novichok range of chemical weapons, stated that hudreds of people would have been effected by residual contamination and the Skripals would be left with debilitating health issues for the rest of their lives.

Interestingly the two Russian GRU personnel were interviewed by Russian TV in September. They claimed they had flown to Britain as tourists - for just two days? Who did they expect would believe that? And the only object of their tourism was not to see London or do anything in the UK other than to see Salisbury Cathedral which theyclaimed they had heard was worth visiting! And as if anyone would believe that! They shouldn't because the local street cctv cameras showed they never went near the Cathedral! The BBC traced one of the perpetrators to his home in Moscow. He only said he had been a tourist before shutting the door.   

The end result was that Putin was furious at the botched attempt to murder Skripal and ordered a purge of senior officials in the GRU. The head of the GRU "died" 2 months later. 

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/dec/26/skripal-poisonings-bungled-assassination-kremlin-putin-salisbury

[PeterRS]

5 hours ago, Moses said:

Nope. High court decision is to ban "International LGBT movement"

Oh dear @Moses! Why do you not quote correctly? The banning is of the International LGBT movement and its activities in RUSSIA! The reason? As stated by the Court LGBT "activists" should be designated as "extremists". But again you quote no sources!

President Vladimir Putin, expected shortly to announce that he will seek a new six-year term in March, has long sought to promote an image of Russia as a guardian of traditional moral values in contrast with a decadent West.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-supreme-court-bans-lgbt-movement-extremist-2023-11-30/#:~:text=MOSCOW%2C Nov 30 (Reuters),lead to arrests and prosecutions.

[Moses]

8 hours ago, Travelingguy said:

have you ever criticized the Russian government or Putin on this board for anything?

Sure. I many times told: there is lack of the freedom of the speech in Russia. 

 

7 hours ago, PeterRS said:

Oh! Russia has many ways of eliminating those it sees as some sort of threat to its leaders.

It is just "bla-bla-bla" from the point of accusations of "oligarch rain"... no one of them was oligarch, and no one "oligarch" fell from window in Russia, so as I told - it is just propaganda and urban legends...

and if we will talk about murdering of "enemies of regime", then Russia does the same as many other countries does. Israel's Mossad killed 7 Iranan scientists at past 10 years. US kill's by drones in different countries also. At least Russia kills own citizens who became traitor.

[reader]

2 hours ago, Moses said:

At least Russia kills own citizens who became traitor.

You seem to have conveniently forgotten about The Ukraine.

[Moses]

5 minutes ago, reader said:

You seem to have momentarily forgotten about The Ukraine.

It was reply on urban legends about falling oligarchs.
If you want to talk about invasions, then US again has much longer list to discuss. Just deaths of civilians at time of US invasion to Iraq will cover Ukrainian loss of civilians at least 50 times. Israel in 2 weeks also killed more civilians in Gaza, than Russia in Ukraine in 2 years.

[reader]

Dream on, Moses.

[unicorn]

13 hours ago, Moses said:

Could you please name even one "oligarch" who fell from windows in Russia in 2000-2023?

Do you know difference btw you and me? You trust to propaganda, I trust to own eyes.

There are long lists of these people:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspicious_deaths_of_Russian_businesspeople_(2022–2023)

"...Ravil Maganov, chairman of the national oil company Lukoil, fell from a Kremlin Hospital window under suspicious circumstances, according to reports: CCTV cameras had been "turned off for repairs", Putin was visiting the hospital the same day, and associates did not believe he was suicidal...". 

Whether or not you personally witnessed this event is dumb and irrelevant. Do not continue to make a fool of yourself by denying what is documented and common knowledge. You continue to intentionally make false statements of fact, which are easily disproven, and this only makes you come off as a liar. And your continued arrogant refusal to use google translate doesn't make you look any wiser (though at least this time I understood what you were trying to say). 

[Moses]

50 minutes ago, unicorn said:

Ravil Maganov, chairman of the national oil company Lukoil, fell from a Kremlin Hospital window under suspicious circumstances

He is not "oligarch", since he isn't owner of Lukoil. He is just top-manager.

50 minutes ago, unicorn said:

There are long lists of these people:

The only oligarch who died on territory of Russia at past 3 years is Prigozhin, but he didn't fall from window. Rest people in this long list are managers or minor businessman like Melnikov (his medical company had yearly profit less than $1 mln), or died outside of Russia. 

The most propagandistic row in this "Long List of Bullshit" is row with Rapoport name, who died in USA to where he emigrated in 1980 at age of 12 yo. No one US agency accused Russia in his death. But I think somebody should check his 2 Ukrainian wife who got all Rapoport's money after his death.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Rapoport

By the way, speaking about gay rights and police raids. Newest police raids to gay bars have been in USA just in 2020, 50 years after Stonewall riot...

 

[unicorn]

12 hours ago, Moses said:

He is not "oligarch", since he isn't owner of Lukoil. He is just top-manager...

He was the Chairman of Lukoil, like the website says. Jesus Christ, you're like the George Santos of this forum. When you caught in a lie, rather than fess up, you just double-down with another, even more outrageous lie. Believe me, it does not make you look clever. It makes you look like a clown.

Maganov was a critic of Putin. Putin can't take any criticism, so the barbarous pussy that Putin is had him murdered.

 

[PeterRS]

15 hours ago, Moses said:

By the way, speaking about gay rights and police raids. Newest police raids to gay bars have been in USA just in 2020, 50 years after Stonewall riot...

Wrong again! The most recent have been in Moscow and prior to that in Venezuela in September this year. Seriously, do facts ever really mean anything to you or do you not realise they can be easily checked most of the time?

And when you make errors - e.g that nonsense about Putin speaking about the freedom of gays to live their lives in Russia when in fact as is totally obvious from the YouTube video his words have nothing to do with Russia since he is just mocking the west(!), you never admit that you are merely spreading Kremlin propaganda. I suppose it takes all sorts!

[Moses]

3 hours ago, unicorn said:

 

Who are these people?

Internal business pressures turned deadly

That leaves a third theory, one that both Taylor and Rutland indicate is far more likely than either a Kremlin-directed campaign of assassinations or a spate of genuine accidents and suicides.

Specifically, the recent run of deaths among Russia’s business elite could well be disguised killings — but the killings may be a product of Russia’s tangled political and economic structures, which are newly under pressure from Russia’s war in Ukraine, more than of any specific, overarching agenda.

According to Taylor, the deaths could have more to do with “shady business, attempt to cover tracks, attempt to wipe out a competitor, trying to maybe get rid of someone who’s inconvenient at a time when there’s a lot of pressure on state-affiliated companies, especially in the oil and gas sector, but also in the defense sector.”

Markus agrees, noting in an email that “there are competing influential clans” within the Russian state “that span state institutions and private or state-owned firms.”

“So far these clans have been loyal to Putin, but this loyalty has not reduced their predatory appetites,” Markus told me. “From the clans’ viewpoint, the current situation has led to (1) lower cash flows available for diversion or theft; and (2) less certainty in Putin’s future as the ultimate leader of Russian kleptocracy. Hence, clans may be settling their scores and competing more viciously — which could involve murders in question — without this being a centralized Kremlin effort.”

That explanation also makes more sense than the Kremlin-directed conspiracy theory, given the cross section of Russia’s business class that’s turned up dead. Though there are some common linkages — ties to energy companies, for example — some experts, such as Mark Galeotti, the author of the upcoming book Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine, have pointed out that coverage of the deaths can paint with an overly broad brush.

“When did the death of the former rector of a technical university become the (implied: mysterious) end of a ‘Putin ally’? (Everyone dying in [Russia] now is elevated to oligarch or ally),” Galeotti tweeted after the death of Geraschenko in September.

Significantly, both Taylor and Rutland emphasize that there’s still a great deal of uncertainty around the deaths. However, under the third and, according to them, more likely theory, continued pressure on Russia’s economy could well accelerate the trend.

Violence as a way of doing business has been “deeply normalized going back to the 1990s,” Rutland said. “And so as the regime enters what could be its death throes, or certainly it’s under huge pressure, you can imagine that there’s gonna be this — well, it’s not yet a bloodbath, but you can imagine that the faction fighting will get even more desperate.”

There are no satisfying answers to be had, at least for now. Recent history supports the idea that such deaths are something Putin would be fully capable of, but he lacks a clear motive that connects them all; as some close Russia watchers have observed, Russia’s cutthroat business culture is at least equally likely to be culpable as a repressive Kremlin. In both cases, there’s a distinct dearth of evidence — but the speculation only underscores the overlapping brutality of Russian business and Putin’s regime.

https://www.vox.com/world/2022/10/14/23388516/russian-businessmen-oligarchs-putin-mysterious-deaths-windows

[unicorn]

11 hours ago, Moses said:

...Internal business pressures turned deadly...

Ridiculous. Putin intentionally makes it very obvious to everyone that he's the one responsible. I suppose that organized criminal elements can commit murders, but clearly only the FSB, with Putin's instructions, can make the hospital turn off its video cameras at the opportune moment (and stop any investigations into the death). Putin wants everyone to know that those speak against him will be violently killed, with impunity. He also made it very clear that he was responsible for the murder of journalist Ivan Safronov when he had his goons similarly throw him out of a 5th floor window. The fact that Safronov had just returned from the grocery store, that there were groceries and personal effects strewn about the stairway--and that he had his shoes removed and jacket/sweater pulled over his shoulders--made it clear to everyone that the official explanation of suicide couldn't possibly be true. Of course, authorities refused to send an ambulance until after he'd been confirmed dead (he was still alive for 30 minutes after the fall, but the request for an ambulance was denied). Again, only the FSB could have made it clear to emergency services that they couldn't intervene.