A magistrate’s court in the Central District of Moscow has fined the editor-in-chief of “Sports” Vladislav Voronin 200,000 roubles (approx. US$2,200) under the law on “LGBT propaganda” among adults (part 3 of article 6.21 of the Administrative Code). This was reported by the Parni+ project.
The reason for the fine was a piece by journalist Ilya Sobol about the football team Stonewall FC, founded in 1991 by gay players. The article was initially published on the “Sports” website, later deleted, but a copy remained in the Yandex.Zen archive.
According to Roskomnadzor, the article “creates a predisposition to approve non-traditional sexual relationships” and “forms a distorted perception of their equivalence to traditional ones.” The defence insisted that the material had been posted on the platform by a user not connected to the editorial team, but a Roskomnadzor representative noted that, as editor-in-chief, Voronin is responsible for the site’s content and, in the agency’s view, did not meet the requirements of the media law.
The court did not take into account the fact that the article had been deleted following the agency’s complaint.
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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