Police within the Russian metropolis of Kazan Wednesday arrested a publicly out homosexual couple, Haoyang Xu and Gela Gogishvili, for his or her alleged breach of the nation’s “homosexual propaganda” regulation. Based on a statement from their lawyer, the 2 males are accused of violating the propaganda regulation due to movies uploaded to the couple’s YouTube and TikTok accounts. The 2 males are notably lively on social media, the place they amassed a big following by chronicling their experiences in Russia as a homosexual, non-Slavic couple.
Unbiased human rights monitor OVD-Data reported {that a} Russian felony court docket charged the 2 males with violating Russia’s regulation prohibiting all public expressions of identical intercourse attraction and relationships. The court docket claimed the couple violated the propaganda regulation by releasing movies the place the 2 males might be seen touching one another. On account of his violation, a Russian court docket dominated Thursday to deport Xu, a Chinese language citizen, again to China. In the meantime, Gogishvili, an ethnically Georgian citizen of Russia, was launched from police custody however ordered to return to court docket later this month to defend himself towards the costs.
Xu and Gogishvili began relationship in 2021. Based on an interview they gave in March to the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, they instantly skilled harassment after they started importing movies documenting their experiences as a homosexual couple in Russia. Xu said that many individuals in his life threatened to report him and Gogishvili to the Russian authorities, together with considered one of his school professors. These threats got here to fruition on Wednesday, when the couple was arrested within the Russian metropolis of Karzan.
The “homosexual propaganda” regulation, first launched in 2013, makes it a felony act in Russia to publicly launch materials depicting same-sex relationships. The regulation was lately reformed to incorporate harsher penalties, and expanded to ban any depiction of LGBTQ relationships or identities on all platforms, together with social media accounts.
