Merkacheva asked the Supreme Court to clarify the criteria for LGBT propaganda

A member of the Presidential Council for Human Rights, Eva Merkacheva, prepared an appeal to the Supreme Court in order to clarify what actions and what symbols indicate LGBT propaganda (“an international movement” recognized as an extremist organization in Russia and banned). In particular, Ms. Merkacheva asked a question about the rainbow and the use of feminists. Previously, the Nizhny Novgorod court arrested a local resident for five days for earrings with a rainbow.

“There is a feeling that they will soon begin to simply cross out and cover up the rainbow from everywhere. If parents are afraid that they will be accused of buying hairpins or pants with a rainbow, they will be punished, their children will be taken away, then this indicates that the situation has been brought to the point of absurdity. The decision that the court recently made seems to confirm that people were right to be afraid,” said Ms. Merkacheva Kommersant FM.

According to Eva Merkacheva, the recent decision of the Nizhny Novgorod court caused mass appeals from concerned parents. In a statement published in her Telegram-channel, she asks the Supreme Court to clarify what kind of symbolism is considered propaganda, and whether the use of feminists in oral and written speech violates Russian legislation.

February 1 Nizhny Novgorod court sent local resident under administrative arrest for five days for public display of symbols of an extremist organization under Part 1 of Art. 20.3 Code of Administrative Offences. Previously, a video was published on social networks in which a man approached a guy and a girl in a cafe and demanded that the young man take off his badge with the flag of Ukraine, but was refused. The young man’s girlfriend had rainbow earrings in the shape of a frog.

Court decision State Duma deputy Alexander Khinshtein, author project about a complete ban on the promotion of non-traditional sexual relationships, called it very strange. After the trial, a photo of the earrings went viral on social networks — they had a seven-color rainbow on them (the flag of the banned community consists of six stripes). Later he reportedthat human rights activists replaced the girl’s earrings and the case actually involves jewelry with LGBT symbols (recognized as an extremist organization in Russia and prohibited).

Read more in the Kommersant FM article. “The Rainbow Is Tangled in Flowers”

Alexandra Goroshilova