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On Wednesday, St. Petersburg city assembly adopted the a scandalous bill imposing monetary penalty for any propaganda of homosexuality and pedophilia.
According to the new bill, every person who will be caught propagandizing homosexuality among minors will be fined from 5 thousand rubles (some 165$) from 50 thousand rubles (1 665$) for private individuals and officials and up to half million rubles for legal entities.
The bill discontented human rights defenders who considered it as a flagrant violation of human rights. Critics also indicated that here was no explanation of what homosexual propaganda actually is in the document.
Nevertheless, the draft law was supported by influential St. Petersburg politicians who also want to pass the bill at the federal level. They insist the ban is necessary for “minor’s moral and spiritual development,” though right groups call this initiative the first step towards fascism.
Similar bans were in the southern Astrakhan and central Ryazan and Kostroma regions in Russia.
On Wednesday, several gay rights activists were detained near the Parliament building, as they tried to held a unauthorized protest meeting against the bill. The protest's members tried to say that the bill was intended to diverting public attention from Russia’s “real political and social problems.”
Homosexuality was illegal in the Soviet Union and was only decriminalized by President Boris Yeltsin in 1993. Still, many Russian people are prejudiced against non-traditional relations.
Author: Julia Alieva
