On Monday, July 22, 4 Dutch citizens appeared in a local court in the northern Russian city of Murmansk of holding a gay rights seminar and so "promoting homosexual relationships among minors".

      Investigators and migration officials reportedly detained the four, who were making a film about gay rights in Russia, on Sunday afternoon at a campsite during an event for young rights activists. They were moved to the police station and questioned for about eight hours, said Tatyana Kulbakina, a representative of human rights monitoring organization OGON.

      All the detainees are Dutch human rights activists, one of them is Kris van der Veen, a gay rights activist and a Dutch city councilman. On his Facebook page Van der Veen wrote that the local police had considered the documentary film and the process of its filming to be homosexual propaganda. However, there is still no official statement from police or investigators about the case.

      According to Kubalkina, the four Dutch citizens are now free to leave the country, as the judge returned the case materials for further investigation. However, the material they recorded in Russia for their film was confiscated by police, and they may try to get it back.

      The Dutch activists were detained in accordance with a controversial Russian legislation banning the promotion of “non-traditional relationships” toward minors. Individuals in violation of the law can be fined up to 100,000 rubles ($3,000).

      The four Dutch citizens were also each fined 3,000 rubles ($100) by migration officials for violating the terms of their visas, Kulbakina added.