On June 30 this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin
signed into law a bill banning the "propaganda of nontraditional sexual
relations to minors," thus opening a new, dark chapter in the history of
gay rights in Russia. The law caps a period of ferocious activities by
the Russian government aimed at limiting the rights of the country’s
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex people.
The violations of fundamental, constitutionally protected rights of Russia’s gay citizens have included multiple bans on gay pride parades in Moscow and other cities, hefty fines to gay rights groups accused of acting as a “foreign agent,” denial of registration to nongovernmental organizations,
and regional laws banning the propaganda of homosexuality to minors,
which served as a basis for the federal law enacted by Mr. Putin and
unanimously passed by the State Duma. Against this backdrop, violent attacks on gays or “suspect gays” are becoming commonplace.
The state-sponsored initiatives relied on ludicrous assumptions. For
example, the regional bans on propaganda of homosexuality equated
same-sex relations with pedophilia even though the former has been legal
since 1993 and the latter is, of course, a serious crime. The court
decision denying registration to Sochi Pride House states that
“propaganda of nontraditional sexual orientation” is a direct threat to
Russian society, while calling attempts to confront homophobia
“extremist” because they inherently “incite social and religious
hatred.” Essentially, the court ruled that gays incite hatred toward
themselves and should be “protected” from doing so. The court went on to
argue that such extremist activities present a threat to “Russia’s
sovereignty and territorial integrity.” The Russian government uses
these flawed arguments when it defends its discriminatory ways to an
international audience. Russian diplomats are fond of saying that
discrimination does not exist in Russia because the country’s
constitution forbids it. Some logic!
Russia’s courts and
diplomats — and President Putin — cannot be trusted to explain the
status of gay rights in the country, but the European Court of Human
Rights can. In April 2011, the Strasbourg court fined Russia for
violating articles 11, 13, and 14 of the European Convention by banning
164 pride events and marches between 2006 and 2008. The unanimous
decision in Alekseyev v. Russia came into force after the Russian
government lost its appeal in Strasbourg, yet although the Kremlin paid
the fine, they continued to ban pride rallies. In May 2012, a district
court in Moscow issued a ruling banning such events in the city until
May 2112. That’s Russia’s approach: pay the fine, admit nothing, and
make things worse.
The cornerstone of Mr. Putin’s “War on Gays,”
however, is the vaguely defined and definitively antigay Article 6.21
of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses, which
allows the government to fine individuals accused of the propaganda of
nontraditional sexual relations amongst minors. The federal ban “builds
on the success” of regional laws on “propaganda of homosexualism to
minors,” passed in 10 regions since 2006. We have yet to see an example
of the federal law in action, though we came pretty close when four Dutch citizens were briefly detained in the northern city of Murmansk in July. Regional laws were used several times to fine gay rights activists.
Here is what Article 6.21 actually says:
Propaganda is the act of distributing information among minors that 1) is aimed at the creating nontraditional sexual attitudes, 2) makes nontraditional sexual relations attractive, 3) equates the social value of traditional and nontraditional sexual relations, or 4) creates an interest in nontraditional sexual relations.
If you’re Russian. Individuals engaging in such propaganda can
be fined 4,000 to 5,000 rubles (120-150 USD), public officials are
subject to fines of 40,000 to 50,000 rubles (1,200-1,500 USD), and
registered organizations can be either fined (800,000-1,000,000 rubles
or 24,000-30,000 USD) or sanctioned to stop operations for 90 days. If
you engage in the said propaganda in the media or on the internet, the
sliding scale of fines shifts: for individuals, 50,000 to 100,000
rubles; for public officials, 100,000 to 200,000 rubles, and for
organizations, from one million rubles or a 90-day suspension.
If you’re an alien. Foreign
citizens or stateless persons engaging in propaganda are subject to a
fine of 4,000 to 5,000 rubles, or they can be deported from the Russian
Federation and/or serve 15 days in jail. If a foreigner uses the media
or the internet to engage in propaganda, the fines increase to
50,000-100,000 rubles or a 15-day detention with subsequent deportation
from Russia.
Huh? What?
The law passed by the Duma is so ambiguous for a
reason. Without a legal definition of ‘propaganda’ or ‘nontraditional
sexual relations’ — key operative words in Article 6.21 — we are not
getting a clear picture of how the authorities will use it. Ironically,
the best arguments against the adoption of this the antigay legislation
come from none other than the Russian government. In 2004 and 2006, the
government resisted attempts to introduce similarly ambiguous federal
bans on “the propaganda of homosexuality.”
On February 20, 2006, then-Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov (currently serving as a Deputy Speaker of the State Duma and the President of Russia's Olympic Committee), submitted an official recall to a tabled antigay bill, arguing that the legislation contradicted Russia's criminal code that doesn’t allow to criminalize the propaganda of noncriminal behavior, contains “a row of mistakes and judicial-technical inexactitudes,” and relies on definitions that do not allow to clearly formulate corpus delicti. The May 20, 2004, rebuttal from Mr. Zhukov was even more forthcoming, pointing out that the bill “contradicts article 29 of the Russian Constitution, as well as articles 8, 10, and 14 of the European Convention on human rights.”
I couldn’t put it better than Zhukov. Unfortunately, his resistance to the anti-gay bills of 2004 & 2006 came at a time when the Kremlin cared about Russia’s international reputation. Now it appears to care only about nontraditional sex.