Russia’s Supreme Court Categorizes LGBTQ Activists As ‘Extremists’

On Thursday, Russia’s Supreme Court ruled that LGBTQ activists should be deemed “extremists,” heightening fears among the community that they will soon be arrested and even prosecuted.

The presiding judge announced his endorsement of a request from the Justice Ministry to ban “the international LGBT social movement.” This move is the latest in Russian efforts to restrict expressions of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Russia has already outlawed the promotion of “non-traditional” sexual relations and banned legal or medical gender transitions.

U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Turk urged Russia to “repeal, immediately, laws that place improper restrictions on the work of human rights defenders or that discriminate against LGBT people.”

In a speech last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Western cultures were welcome to adopt “rather strange, in my view, new-fangled trends like dozens of genders and gay parades,” but that other countries should not be forced to do so, as well.

Spokesperson for the U.N. Human Rights Office Ravina Shamdasani said that the LGBTQ community’s status in Russia was “just going from bad to worse,” and that the lack of clarity provided by the court about the new restrictions left the law open for potentially dangerous interpretation.

Putin made headlines this week when he urged Russian women to “have eight or more children.”