RussiaPrussia
03-13-2014, 03:37 PM
LGBT activism now ‘terrorism’ in Belarus
Belarus is the former Soviet republic now known as Europe’s ‘last dictatorship’. It’s leader, Lukashenko, has accused ‘the West’ of trying to turn Slavs gay and is known for bon mots on the gays like that ’women become lesbians because men are worthless’.
The country may not yet have a ‘gay propaganda’ law like Russia’s but there have been repeated rumours that it might actually recriminalise gay sex. When a gay group tried to officially register last December police raided gay clubs and activists found themselves hauled into police stations, one had his passport confiscated.
Now the government has adopted new policy on ‘the fight against terrorism’ which extends the logic of some of the statements coming from Eastern Europe (or from some anti-gay American activists for that matter): gay activism is ‘terrorism’:
The document also notes that the internal source of a terrorist threat can become a “weakening of patriotism and traditional moral values among the youth due to the insufficient level of development of civil society, the destructive impact of information on the process of socialization of young people, a manifestation of trends towards the increased social stratification, the presence of a significant number of criminal and other unlawful acts against the person and property”
Given all else that has happened to them, local gay activists sound wearied. Alexandr Paluyan from Gay Alliance Belarus told me:
Relative to the new law. Indeed, information about non-traditional family values, as it used to be called in post-Soviet countries, the authorities can really be regarded as terrorism. Due to the fact that since the beginning of this year is the total pressure on the LGBT movement in Belarus, it is not excluded, and this fact is to apply the law in the future, however, it seems to me that this will not happen. But the fact of the possibility of equating LGBT activists as terrorists, and information resources called terrorist, of course, a matter of concern.
Exactly how this might work out for them seems, from the limited information I could find, opaque because exactly how the policy will be applied is not clear. Nor is whether the equation of gay activists with terrorists will spread, but I would not be shocked if it does.
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2013/09/03/comment-with-all-eyes-on-anti-gay-russia-there-are-three-countries-with-a-shocking-need-for-coverage/
Belarus is the former Soviet republic now known as Europe’s ‘last dictatorship’. It’s leader, Lukashenko, has accused ‘the West’ of trying to turn Slavs gay and is known for bon mots on the gays like that ’women become lesbians because men are worthless’.
The country may not yet have a ‘gay propaganda’ law like Russia’s but there have been repeated rumours that it might actually recriminalise gay sex. When a gay group tried to officially register last December police raided gay clubs and activists found themselves hauled into police stations, one had his passport confiscated.
Now the government has adopted new policy on ‘the fight against terrorism’ which extends the logic of some of the statements coming from Eastern Europe (or from some anti-gay American activists for that matter): gay activism is ‘terrorism’:
The document also notes that the internal source of a terrorist threat can become a “weakening of patriotism and traditional moral values among the youth due to the insufficient level of development of civil society, the destructive impact of information on the process of socialization of young people, a manifestation of trends towards the increased social stratification, the presence of a significant number of criminal and other unlawful acts against the person and property”
Given all else that has happened to them, local gay activists sound wearied. Alexandr Paluyan from Gay Alliance Belarus told me:
Relative to the new law. Indeed, information about non-traditional family values, as it used to be called in post-Soviet countries, the authorities can really be regarded as terrorism. Due to the fact that since the beginning of this year is the total pressure on the LGBT movement in Belarus, it is not excluded, and this fact is to apply the law in the future, however, it seems to me that this will not happen. But the fact of the possibility of equating LGBT activists as terrorists, and information resources called terrorist, of course, a matter of concern.
Exactly how this might work out for them seems, from the limited information I could find, opaque because exactly how the policy will be applied is not clear. Nor is whether the equation of gay activists with terrorists will spread, but I would not be shocked if it does.
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2013/09/03/comment-with-all-eyes-on-anti-gay-russia-there-are-three-countries-with-a-shocking-need-for-coverage/