Moscow (AFP) - A Russian court has ruled that two popular LGBT networking groups be blocked for disseminating "anti-family values", including a major group that has nearly 200,000 members.
The court
in Saint Petersburg on Wednesday announced the decision against the groups on
VK, a Russian platform similar to Facebook.
"An
inspection showed they contain information available to the public, including
children, which negates family values, propagates non-traditional sexual
relations and promotes disrespectful attitudes towards parents," the court
statement said.
Russia in
2013 introduced a law against "gay propaganda", which officially bans
the "promotion of non-traditional lifestyles to minors" but in effect
outlaws LGBT activism.
One of the
groups mentioned in the court decision is called the Russian LGBT Community,
which has more than 187,000 members.
The other
group, LGBT Russia, is overseen by the NGO Russian LGBT Network, which told AFP
the decision was a complete surprise.
"The
court spends about five minutes blocking LGBT internet resources and the
decisions have identical wording," said the organisation's spokeswoman,
Svetlana Zakharova.
"We
don't publish anything on our pages that needs to be marked 'adults only',"
Zakharova said. "We talk about cases of discrimination and human rights
violations and help anybody who needs it, including teenagers," she said.
Zakharova
said the NGO would appeal the ruling.
Homophobia
is widespread in Russia where reports of rights violations and attacks on LGBT
people are common, though there are gay scenes in major cities.
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