Venice looks to suspend partnership with St Petersburg over anti-gay laws
The Venice Municipal Council is currently considering ending a partnership with the Russian city of St Petersburg over the latter’s recently adopted anti-gay laws.
The law equates homosexuality with “paedophilia” and was passed by the city on February 29 of this year – despite more than 270,000 people signing an online petition against the measure.
LGBT rights campaigners had challenged the law, which imposes fines of up to 5,000 rubles (£107) on individuals and up to 500,000 (£10,700) on businesses for promoting LGBT issues.
Venice and St Petersburg signed a bilateral cooperation agreement in 2006 but council members Simone Venturini and Camilla Seibezzi have now initiated a proposal to end the agreement. A hearing will be held within the next few days on the issue.
Milan dropped its partnership agreement with the city over this issue last week.
Last week, Madonna was acquitted on charges that she broke the anti-gay laws. Nine plaintiffs said that she caused “moral suffering” following her performance in the city during August.
