Current Affairs

Putin awarded Golden Enema Prize of Disgrace in St Petersburg

Jan 03 2014
Written by Joseph McCormick

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been awarded a Golden Enema Prize of Disgrace in the second annual awards ceremony in St Petersburg.

In the ceremony last week, Putin was given the award alongside Ms Yelena Isinbayeva (athlete), Mr Ivan Okhlobystin (actor), Mr Vladimir Gundyaev (spiritual name: Patriarch Kirill), Mr. Aleksei Zhuravlyov (Deputy of the Lower House of the Russian Parliament), Mr Arkadii Mamontov (journalist), the Russian Foreign Ministry, and the Committee of the Government of St Petersburg for Public Order and Security.

Putin was awarded the Grand Prix at the awards.

Last June he signed a law which banned the promotion of homosexuality to minors, and has been accused of human rights violations by many across the globe.

Lawmaker Alexei Zhuravlyov in September proposed a bill which would deny gay parents custody over their own children.

Criticising Swedish athlete Emma Green Tregaro for painting her nails in the colour of the rainbow at this week’s Moscow World Athletics Championships, Isinbayeva said: “It’s unrespectful [sic] to our country, it’s unrespectful [sic] to our citizens, because we are Russians, Maybe we are different from European people and other people from different lands.”

Actor Ivan Okhlobystin addressed fans of the Russian show ‘Interns’, which is directly influenced by the US show ‘Scrubs’, in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, to say that gay people should all be burned alive.

The Golden Enema is an annual Prize established in 2012 by the social organization Straight Alliance for LGBT Equality. Golden Enemas are awarded to politicians and officials, athletes and journalists, and people working in culture and religion, for anti-gay sentiments expressed publicly.

The 2013 awards held last week was the second time the awards were held.

Putin was also in the past week honoured with the Times newspaper’s International Person of the Year Award.