A Russian court has ordered the arrest of an administrator and an art director of a gay bar in the city of Orenburg on Wednesday. They were charged with violating the ban on LGBTQ “propaganda.”
According to news agency RBC, the employees identified by the media as Diana Kamilyanova and Aleksandr Klimov are the first people who have been arrested since Russia formally banned the “international LGBT movement” last year.
The arrest comes after police raided the bar Pose on Monday. In its post on Telegram, the court described the administrator and the art director as “persons with non-traditional sexual orientation” and said they will remain behind bars until May 18.
According to the court, the administrator has been accused of organizing shows that constitute “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations.” The art director, meanwhile, was responsible for “the selection of drag performers” and has been accused of “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations among the bar’s patrons and on the bar’s Telegram channel.”
Both were charged under Article 282.2 of Russia’s Criminal Code, which deals with membership in banned organizations. If found guilty, they would face up to eight years in prison.
In 2022, Russia expanded the existing ban on LGBTQ “propaganda” to minors by outlawing it altogether. Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the State Duma – the lower house of Russia’s parliament – said at the time that the ban would shield “our children and the future of the country from the darkness spread by the US and European states.”
President Vladimir Putin insisted last month that the authorities do not have issues with what the members of the LGBTQ community do in their personal lives as long as they “don’t flaunt it” in public.
© 2024, paradox. All rights reserved.
The Russian military has seized two settlements in Kharkov Region and Donbass from Ukrainian forces,…
AstraZeneca pharmaceutical company has announced the withdrawal of its Covid-19 vaccine from global markets, claiming…
A video documenting the destruction of a NATO-supplied tank in Ukrainian service appeared on Russian…
Russian President Vladimir Putin has officially been sworn into office for a fifth term. In…
Moscow will retaliate against British targets in Ukraine or elsewhere if Kiev uses UK-provided missiles…
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky cannot enlist God in Kiev’s fight against Moscow, the Russian Orthodox…