On 3 January, the Yakutsk City Court fined Number One club-restaurant’s owner, the company LLC “Jinlun,” 250,000 roubles (approximately US$2,800), finding it guilty under the article on organising a mass gathering of people in a public place that resulted in a breach of public order (Part 1, Article 20.2.2 of the Code of Administrative Offences). The press service of the region’s courts reported this.
The owners of the club were charged over a show during which, according to the court, “people were present in a state of undress that demeaned human dignity” and there was “promotion of non-traditional sexual relations.”
On the afternoon of 2 January, in Number One, law enforcement arrived and detained bartenders, waiters and the executive director; there were no performers in the club-restaurant at the time. Earlier, the Yakutsk administrative commission’s Telegram channel reported that since 26 December shows had been held featuring “transgender women from Thailand and men of non-traditional sexual orientation.” Yakutsk is the capital city of the Sakha Republic in northeast Russia.
The head of the administrative commission, Felix Antonov, took part in the raid on the club. “In the videos circulated on social media, it is clear that they are transvestites. They were dancing with each other, promoting non-traditional values,” the official stated.
Asya Sokolova for OVD-Info
The adoption of the “LGBT propaganda” law marked not only widespread censorship but also intensified repression against LGBTQ people and the organisations that support them. With the designation of the “International LGBT Movement” as an “extremist organisation,” this pressure has increased once again.
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