Russian Gay Film Festival Gets Conviction For Being A ‘Foreign Agent’ Overturned

There’s been a lot of publicity over the increasingly hostile situation for gay people in Russia, with laws banning the promotion of homosexuality, as well as new rules that don’t just seek to stop foreign gay couples adopting Russian orphans, but could stop straight couples from countries that permit gay adoption as well.

One of the less reported parts of the crackdown is the prosecution of the LGBT film festival, Bok o Bok (Side by Side), which started out in St. Petersberg but has since expanded to other cities, such as Moscow, Tomsk, Arkhangelsk, Perm and Novosibirsk. Earlier this year it was fined 500,000 roubles (about £10,000) after a judge ruled that it had taken donations from overseas, in contravention of a controversial new law.

While that conviction was initially upheld at its first appeal, it’s now been overturned at its final appeal. Mikhail Pavlyuchenko, Deputy Chairman of the Saint Petersburg City Court, stated, “The Magistrates Court had incorrectly applied the procedural provisions of the Administrative Code, and in the case of the District Court the Judge overlooked these significant violations of procedural requirements.”

A statement from Bok o Bok reads, “We are pleased with the decision and finally justice has been done! We are grateful to our lawyers, Dmitry Bartenev and Sergey Golubok, who displayed a high level of professionalism throughout the case, to all the individuals and organizations who rendered help and support during these difficult times and to those who made generous donations in order to pay the fine. At present we are requesting the return of the funds paid to the authorities and additionally we will be suing for damages incurred by the organization. We hope that other NGOs also being prosecuted under this law will also win, restoring justice to the court system in Russia.”

The law the festival was fined under says that any non Government organisation must register if they are in receipt of funding from foreigners. The organisers of Bok o Bok say they didn’t register because they haven’t received any foreign funding, and that the judge completely ignored them when they tried to argue they had not broken any laws. Many have said the law is there purely to increase the control the government has over groups that disagree with its views.

St Petersburg was the first major Russian city to enact laws banning the promotion of homosexuality, which have no spread out nationally. So it’s little surprise the festival has faced difficulty there. (Source: PinkNews)