In recent times, L.G.B.T.Q. individuals in Russia have lived underneath growing worry because the Kremlin has ratcheted up measures curbing homosexual and transgender rights in tandem with the repressive seek for “internal enemies” through the struggle in Ukraine.
Within the newest menace, the Ministry of Justice will search a courtroom order on Thursday to declare the worldwide homosexual rights motion an “extremist organization.”
Homosexual rights activists and different consultants say {that a} ruling in favor would put homosexual individuals and their organizations underneath the specter of being criminally prosecuted at any time for one thing so simple as displaying the rainbow flag or for endorsing the assertion “Gay rights are human rights.”
That prospect has heightened angst and alarm within the nation’s already beleaguered homosexual communities.
“It is not the first time we are being targeted, but at the same time, it is another blow,” mentioned Alexander Kondakov, a Russian sociologist at College Faculty Dublin, who research the intersection of legislation and safety for the L.G.B.T.Q. communities. “You are already marked as foreign, as bad, as a source of propaganda, and now you are labeled an extremist — and the next step is terrorist.”
President Vladimir V. Putin has sought to painting the troubled, protracted struggle that he began as a struggle to keep up “Russian traditional values.” To that finish, the homosexual communities are sometimes portrayed as a possible Computer virus for the Wes. And the courtroom case comes months earlier than Mr. Putin is predicted to make use of what he calls his protection of Russian values as a pillar of his marketing campaign within the March 2024 presidential elections.
The federal government, which filed a lawsuit filed on Nov. 17 with the Supreme Court docket searching for to label the homosexual rights motion as extremist, is more likely to prevail.
Whereas a courtroom ruling in favor of the measure wouldn’t criminalize homosexuality and would most probably not have an effect on every day life for homosexual and transgender individuals, consultants mentioned, it might make the work of all L.G.B.T.Q. organizations, in addition to any political exercise, untenable.
It might be used to mete out jail sentences of six to 10 years to homosexual rights activists, their legal professionals or others concerned in any form of public effort.
The requested designation can also be written in a sometimes ambiguous method, so it might be exploited by just about anybody to denounce a homosexual individual as an extremist, comparable to a provincial legislation enforcement officer hostile towards homosexual individuals or neighbors who covet a homosexual couple’s residence, consultants mentioned.
Till it turns into clearer how the measure can be carried out, it’s tough to advise homosexual individuals in Russia about altering their lives, mentioned Igor Kochetkov, a founding father of the Russian LGBT Community, an umbrella group.
Critics say it’s uncommon to make use of a designation meant to focus on particular organizations towards one thing extra amorphous like a global motion. There are a pair precedents, nonetheless, particularly two home campaigns seen as encouraging youth violence.
As well as, the Kremlin has more and more slapped the “extremist” label on organizations that it doesn’t like. They embrace the opposition group organized by Aleksei A. Navalny; the Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose presence in Russia is opposed by the Russian Orthodox Church; and Meta, the father or mother firm of Fb and Instagram, which the Russian authorities has accused of spreading Russophobia.
In Russia, measures focusing on L.G.B.T.Q. teams began in earnest after 2012, when Mr. Putin returned to the presidency. In 2013, Russia handed a legislation banning “gay propaganda” directed towards minors and expanded that in 2022 to ban something that, it mentioned, smacked of endorsing “nontraditional relationships and pedophilia” amongst all Russians.
Final summer season, the authorities started issuing fines for what they deemed to be such propaganda in movies and tv sequence on-line. Then, in July, Mr. Putin signed a legislation banning medical gender transitions or altering genders on official paperwork.
There’s a lengthy custom of countries at struggle singling out minority teams, particularly homosexual individuals, for prosecution, comparable to Nazi Germany. The hassle to construct assist for the struggle inevitably entails figuring out exterior and inside enemies, and in Russia the widely adverse perspective towards homosexual individuals dovetails with this effort, mentioned Alexandra Arkhipova, a social anthropologist who research the ripple results of the struggle on Russian society.
A 2016 examine confirmed {that a} majority of Russians “think about homosexual minorities as a form of disease brought by the collective West,” she mentioned.
This perspective is particularly prevalent amongst Russians older than 65, who’re additionally Mr. Putin’s core supporters. They determine together with his promise to return to the Russia of 1970, when the thought of homosexual rights and fluid sexuality didn’t exist publicly, she mentioned.
Some Russians applauded the most recent transfer.
“Rainbow days are coming to an end,” crowed one commenter on a channel on a Telegram messaging app, Operation Z, a reference to the struggle in Ukraine. It was accompanied by an emoji of clapping arms.
Regardless of all of the measures, Russia has maintained that it doesn’t goal its homosexual minority. In latest weeks, Mr. Putin has mentioned at a cultural discussion board in St. Petersburg that homosexual and transgender individuals have been “part of society,” whereas mocking what he known as a pattern within the West to confer public prizes solely on those that have fun the homosexual neighborhood.
Days earlier than saying the lawsuit, a deputy minister of justice, Andrei Loginov, testified earlier than the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva that, in Russia, “the rights of L.G.B.T. people are protected,” saying that “restraining public demonstrations of nontraditional sexual relations or preferences is not a form a censure for them.”
The proposed designation opens the door to the form of authorized and verbal gymnastics that the Kremlin usually makes use of to disclaim that it’s prosecuting a sexual minority group, Ms. Arkhipova mentioned. “They can say to everybody: We are not prosecuting homosexual people; homosexual people are fine — we are just prosecuting extremists,” she mentioned.
Milana Mazaeva contributed reporting.
