Russia's fight against homosexuality: Attacks on the LGBTQ movement are increasing
Created: 07/23/2022, 18:25
By: Andreas Apetz
A participant holds a placard at a march of the LGBTQ+ movement in Warsaw, Poland in June 2022. (Archive Photo) © ZUMA Wire/Imago Images
Since the beginning of the Ukraine war, the situation for people of the LGBTQ movement in Russia has deteriorated drastically.
Moscow – Since February 24, 2022, Vladimir Putin has been waging a war of aggression against Ukraine.
The Russian head of state has been waging his war against the LGBTQ movement for more than ten years: in March 2012 he passed a law with the aim of "protecting children from information that promotes the rejection of traditional family values".
The paragraph aims to prevent "homosexual propaganda" and prohibits same-sex relationships among minors.
Since the Ukraine war, the situation for LGBTQ+ people in Russia has deteriorated even further.
Public hate speech via the state-controlled television channels is no longer an exception.
Many of President Vladimir Putin's close allies have recently used the Ukraine conflict as an excuse to target the LGBTQ+ community.
Russia: Attacks against LGBTQ scene on public television
A current example are the formulations of
Russia 1
moderator Olga Skabeeva on Twitter.
Skabeyeva is one of the most famous faces of Russian television.
As reported by the
BBC
news channel , the presenter described LGBTQ+ people on the Internet as "trans-fascists" who should also be "denazified".
In a short video clip, Skabeeva explained that Russia can triumph over Western powers by waiting for the West to run out of people due to a lack of procreation by the LGBTQ+ movement.
Vladimir Putin: The political career of the Russian head of state in pictures
View photo gallery
The American news portal
Newsweek
reported on another homophobic incident in the Russian media .
Apit Alaudinov, commander of the military of the Chechen Republic, reportedly spoke
during a live broadcast on
Russia-1 .
He publicly described Putin's struggle in Ukraine as a "holy war against LGBTQ+ ideology and the antichrists".
Ramzan Kadyrov wrote something similar on his Telegram channel.
The Chechnya ruler is a longtime confidant of Putin and has described transgender people as "gender shame" and a "Satanist idea".
Homophobia in Russia: Putin is a “deep believer and orthodox man”
According to the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), LGBTQ+ rights in Russia were poor even before the war.
However, the situation has deteriorated significantly since the Ukraine war.
"Homophobic propaganda has been expanded from one of the mainstays of Russian ideology to a justification for its war of aggression."
A sermon by the head of the Moscow church, Cyril I, shows how far homophobia has progressed in Russia, in which the patriarch said that the attack on Ukraine was intended to protect the population from further gay pride parades.
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