Russian police shut down a Pussy Riot video shoot citing ‘gay propaganda’
Pussy Riot (Rick Kern/WireImage)
Police in Russia cited the country’s “gay propaganda” law when they shut down a music video shoot with punk band Pussy Riot in Saint Petersburg yesterday.
Pussy Riot said in a statement that police accused them of “extremism” and of “making an illegal video” and had them removed from Lenfilm studio.
The band was shooting a music video for a song called “БЕСИТ / RAGE” with 150 activists who were mostly queer or female when police turned up, Pitchfork reports.
They said that police insisted staff at the studio shut the power off to bring about an end to the shoot.
Pussy Riot said they lost $15,000 after their music video was shut down because of Russia’s ‘gay propaganda’ law.
Bizarrely, Lenfilm claimed that the police seen in recorded footage were actually actors – however, Pussy Riot responded: “Damn it, if the actor played this, he would have been given an Oscar.”
We’ll be thankful if you share this info and/or be kind enough to help us to raise the money to make this video happen anyway.
The band said they lost $15,000 as a result of the video shoot being shut down, and said the incident occurred because of Russia’s “absurd ‘gay propaganda’ law”.
“We’ll be thankful if you share this info and/or be kind enough to help us to raise the money to make this video happen anyway,” Pussy Riot added.
Russia is well-known for having strict anti-LGBT+ laws. The county’s controversial ‘gay propaganda law’ a unanimously approved federal bill, has prohibited even the mention of homosexuality since 2013.
A Russian feminist recently faced charges under the archaic law.
A number of people have faced charges under the law. In December, a Russian feminist was arrested for “gay propaganda” because she shared drawings of vaginas online.
Yulia Tsvetkova was named as a suspect in a case investigating the distribution of “criminal pornography”. She was investigated for running a social media page called Vagina Monologues, which aims to “remove the taboo” around vaginas.
Despite the law, recent research found that school children in Russia are actually highly tolerant of LGBT+ people.
Following anti-government protests attended by thousands over the summer, Russian authorities have been targeting youth with recent initiatives including funding for patriotic education and a ban on minors attending protests.
But the recent study found that 62 percent of Russian youth say they are patriots and while 70 per cent had heard about the recent wave of protests, 75 percent said they wouldn’t protest themselves.
