RUSSIA

Coming Out : Saint-Petersburg LGBT-organisation

1. Their fight :
On November 11, 2011, legal committee of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly introduced a draft law about prohibition of the so-called propaganda of 'sodomy, lesbianism, bisexualism and transgenderism, and pedophilia to minors' and introduction of administrative offense. The bill was introduced by United Russia.

By combining homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality into one law with sexual crimes against minors (pedophilia), members of the Legislative Assembly indulge in gross manipulations of public opinion. Their goal – to pass an anti-democratic law, directed at severely limiting human rights in St. Petersburg.

In the name of "public interest", members of the Legislative Assembly decided to ignore the Federal law, the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention for Human Rights, Council of Europe Recommendations and other decrees by international organizations, of which Russia is a member.

The largest grassroots LGBT organization Coming Out has been joined in the camapign against the bill by the only interregional LGBT organization "Russian LGBT Network" and LGBT film festival Side by Side. During the last four months over 10 000 signatures against the bill have been collected in Russia and abroad a massive 250 000 signatures have been gathered. Additionally, numerous mass street protests have taken place all over Russia as well as over the world, dozens of Russian and international organizations have demanded explanations from Russian politicians.

Nevertheless, The bill has been passed and signed into law by the city governor Georgy Poltavchnko on March 7th. It is now due to take effect on March 31st, just two days before Russia-wide Week against homophobia begins.

Similar laws were implemented in 2006 in Ryazan, in Arkhangelsk in September 2011 and in December of 2011 in Kostroma region. Several MPs in Moscow expressed the desire