{"id":136515,"date":"2024-09-30T11:16:49","date_gmt":"2024-09-30T09:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/?p=136515"},"modified":"2024-10-21T10:48:10","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T08:48:10","slug":"lgbt-people-russia-searching-internal-enemy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/136515-lgbt-people-russia-searching-internal-enemy.html","title":{"rendered":"LGBT people in Russia: searching for an internal enemy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On September 12, a Moscow court sentenced two young men, Timur A. and Daniil R., to prison for standing near the window of their apartment without clothes. The case is one of hundreds in Russia, launched under the law to protect \u201ctraditional values\u201d. While the deterioration of LGBT rights in Russia began a decade ago, the situation worsened after the war in Ukraine, with the government increasingly casting LGBT individuals as \u201cinternal enemies\u201d.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The first law banning \u201cpropaganda\u201d for LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people] in the Federation of Russia was passed back in 2013. It was aimed at protecting children and prohibited the dissemination of information that could create a positive image among them of \u201cnon-traditional sexual relationships\u201d. In 2014, the law was reviewed by the Constitutional Court of Russia. The court clarified that propaganda means \u201cthe intentional and uncontrolled spread of information that can harm the health, moral, and spiritual development\u201d of children. It could, the court argued, lead them to develop \u201cdistorted ideas about the social equivalence of traditional and non-traditional sexual relationships\u201d. At the same time, the court noted that information about LGBT could still be presented to children, but only in a neutral manner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the situation for LGBT people drastically changed, notes Max Olenichev, a human rights lawyer who works with the Russian LGBT community. \u201cWhen the Russian state failed to capture Ukraine within a few weeks, it began constructing the image of an internal enemy,\u201d he says. \u201cThis was necessary to rally Russian society around the government and divert attention from military setbacks to \u2018internal enemies\u2019. Among those labeled as such were LGBT people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Vladimir Putin in person played a significant role in shaping the evolving narrative around LGBT issues. In 2020, Russia held a vote on amending the Constitution. In addition to a provision that reset presidential term limits, allowing Putin to run for re-election in 2022, other changes were introduced. One of these constitutional amendments was to define marriage exclusively as a \u201cunion between a man and a woman\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n