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Rainbow News"How Should We Live Now?" RWAHO 2012 in Petersburg: Results
11 Apr. 2012
A regular Week against Homophobia this year was dedicated to the Anti-Homopropaganda Law that had been recently adopted in Saint-Petersburg. During the week a number of different events took place. It began with a petition to the City Court: a complaint of the Coming Out LGBT organization on the anti-gay law's discrepancy to the Federal legislation had been registered and taken into procedure.
According to human rights defenders, this law does not comply with the federal legislation. In particular, it breaches the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation. It contains such definitions as "propaganda", "bisexuality", "transgender issue", "traditional and non-traditional conjugal ties" that are not clarified by the federal law. Thus, it is impossible to define the target of a n offence and it is possible to interpret the norm arbitrarily. Any notion of homosexuality in public may be interpreted as an administrative offence. Moreover, the adopted law breaches the principle of equality before the law because it has stated the inequality of "traditional" and "non-traditional" marital relations.
On a special seminar within the framework of the RWAHO, journalists had a chance to raise questions on this law enforcement practice, further actions of gay activists and this law's implications on LGBT society and its members. The seminar was hosted by Igor Kochetkov, member of the Board of the Coming Out LGBT Organization. He stressed that the adopted law violates the Russian Constitution and international law, breaches the right on dissemination of information and intensifies already wide anti-gay feelings in the Russian society.
The legal assessment to this law was given by the lawyer of a society called "Lawyers for constitutional rights and freedoms" Ms. Tatiana Glushkova. "To my regret, this law authorizes arbitrary interpretation during its enforcement practice because the objective part of the offense is not defined at all. It is clear, this law was politically motivated and adopted with an aim to persecute and victimize "Personas Non Grata" for the State authorities".
The second part of the event was an interactive training hosted by Valery Sozaev, an LGBT activist and gender issue researcher (The Russian LGBT Network). Discussing silly questions like "Why are you a heterosexual? Did you have a trauma during your childhood?" or "Don't you think that your heterosexuality is just a temporary period in your life and soon you will get rid of it?", journalists deeply felt themselves the real absurdity and misunderstanding that gays and lesbians constantly are being faced with during their life while trying to explain their "difference". Journalists were informed about the latest scientifically proved facts, including statistical data, on the nature of homosexuality and peculiarities of human gender identity.
Another event was dedicated to discriminatory laws that the state threatens to adopt on federal level. Maria Kozlovskaya, a lawyer, and Maria Sabunayeva, a psychologist, together with LGBT seminar's participants were looking into the substance and the very essence of this law in order to have a clear idea what was banned and what was not as well as to help people to get over their fears and understand their constitutional rights.
The Week against Homophobia was supported by many LGBT activists. On the eve of this action the authorities of several Saint-Petersburg's districts refused to authorize public actions dedicated to the Day of Silence, the authorities of the Central district referred directly to the newly adopted Anti-Gay law of Saint-Petersburg. Not indifferent citizens of this northern Russian city gathered on the square in front of the City Concert Hall "Oktyabrskiy" despite the ban on gathering there - to show their position to homophobic behavior of city's authorities. The peaceful action was a series of single pickets. The police decided that only 2 LGBT activists (Igor Kochetkov and Sergey Kondrashov) violated the new law because Igor had a placard "No to hushing up of gay hate crimes" and Sergey - "A friend of our family is a lesbian, my wife and I love her. Her lifestyle is normal and similar to ours. Her family is socially equal to our family". At present their case was handed to the court that has carried over the hearing date on April 16.
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