Russia declares gay rights movement as ‘extremist’
Decision comes before Putin’s ’24 campaign
Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday declared the international gay rights movement an “extremist organization,” another chilling crackdown on gay and transgender people whose rights have been scaled back drastically since the start of the war in Ukraine.
The court was acting on a lawsuit filed by the Ministry of Justice requesting the designation. When it filed the case Nov. 17, the ministry said the activities of the international LGBTQ+ movement had exhibited “various signs and manifestations of an extremist orientation, including incitement of social and religious hatred.”
The ruling escalates the threat for gay communities inside Russia. Gay rights activists and other experts say the ruling will put gay people and their organizations at risk of being criminally prosecuted for something as simple as displaying symbols such as the rainbow flag or for endorsing the statement “Gay rights are human rights.”
Experts said the decision would make the work of all LGBTQ+ organizations, as well as any political activity, untenable.
It could be used to mete out jail sentences of six to 10 years to gay rights activists, their lawyers, or others involved in any kind of public effort.
That prospect has heightened angst and alarm in the country’s already beleaguered gay communities.
“It is not the first time we are being 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 law and security for the LGBTQ+ communities. “You are already marked as foreign, as bad, as a source of propaganda, and now you are labeled an extremist — and the next step is terrorist.”
President Vladimir Putin has sought to portray the troubled, protracted war that he started as a fight to maintain “Russian traditional values.” To that end, the gay communities are often portrayed as a potential Trojan horse for the West.
The court decision comes months before Putin is expected to use what he calls his defense of Russian values as a pillar of his campaign in the March 2024 presidential elections.
The four-hour court session Thursday was held behind closed doors because the case was declared secret, according to Russian news reports. Although at least one gay rights organization outside Russia sought to oppose the case in court, no countering arguments were allowed, the reports said.
The judge ruled that the decision would take effect immediately.
Under the ruling, any news organization, blogger, or even an individual posting some form of public message that mentions the international LGBTQ+ movement without noting the extremist designation could face a stiff fine.
Soon after the decision, the official RIA Novosti news agency began referring to the movement as an extremist organization in its reports on the ruling.
Ivan Zhdanov, the director of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, an organization founded by imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which has already been labeled an extremist organization, said the decision was the opening shot in Putin’s presidential campaign and called it an example of an increasingly isolated Russia emulating the laws of its ally Iran.
“There will be a complete distraction from real problems, the creation of mythical enemies, discrimination of the population on various grounds, this is just the beginning,” Zhdanov wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
In its initial reaction, Amnesty International said in a statement that the ruling was “shameful and absurd” and called on the Russian government to reverse it.
The way the Ministry of Justice wrote the proposed designation was ambiguous, so it could be exploited by virtually anyone to denounce a gay person as an extremist, such as a provincial law enforcement officer hostile toward gay people or neighbors who covet a gay couple’s apartment, experts said.
Until it becomes clearer how the measure would be carried out, it is difficult to advise gay people in Russia about changing their lives, said Igor Kochetkov, a founder of the Russian LGBT Network, an umbrella organization.