Russian man fined for joking that he started the LGBTQ+ rights movement

A Russian man has been fined for joking that he started the international LGBTQ+ rights movement.

The movement, which doesn’t officially exist, was labelled as extremist by Russia’s Supreme Court in 2023, with citizens facing prison sentences and fines if they are deemed to be part of it.

Since the anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda law was brought into force, several venues have been raided and an unknown number of people fined and given prison sentences. One man recently died in police custody.

Now, independent Russia-language news outlet Mediazona has reported that Anton Yevdokimov, 36, was found guilty in November of spreading “propaganda of non-traditional relations” on Russian social media platform VK, with details only recently published on the court database.

According to court documents, the authorities identified a post on his social media account from December 2023, where he posed with a Pride flag, writing: “Now that they’ve banned LGBT, it’s time to confess: I am the founder and main organiser of the LGBTQ+ extremist organisation.

“I went to Rainbow High School, was recruited there and now irradiate all homophobes with rainbows. Every time a homophobe looks at a rainbow, they get a tingle in their a** and want to suck d**ks.”

He also warned “KGB c**ksuckers” to “be afraid”.

However, the court did not see the joke and fined him 100,000 rubles (£795/$975).

In recent months, the crackdown on LGBTQ+ identities in Russia has led to bar staff and venue owners being jailed, more than 50 club-goers being detained, language-learning app Duolingo forced to remove queer content, children’s cartoon My Little Pony being labelled 18+ and a gay student expelled from university for posting make-up videos.

Most recently, Andrei Kotov, the director of the Men Travel agency, who was arrested in November and charged with taking part in and organising “extremist” activities, was found dead in his cell.

Investigators claimed Kotov created “an extremist community in which propaganda of the ideology of an association recognised as an extremist organisation, and banned by the court in the territory of the Russian Federation, was carried out”.

They added: “The defendant and active participants, who supported the views and activities of the extremist organisation through trips, public events and the publication of images on the internet, formed a false impression among citizens about the institution of marriage enshrined in the constitution of the Russian Federation, and carried out actions aimed at undermining traditional family values.”

A spokesperson for OVD-Info, a human rights group focused on ending political persecution in Russia, said: “The investigative committee has begun an investigation into the death of Andrei Kotov… according to some reports, cuts were found on his body.”

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