Roskomnadzor, Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, has judged it impossible at this stage to block access to Looo.ch, a website that offers a bilingual “Illustrated Textbook on Homosexuality for Kids” – a satire on homophobia in Russia and Ukraine.
“If a boy with a boy is OK, then why do the misters and the ladies say that it is bad?” the textbook asks amid rather explicit pictures.
“Well, my young friend, it is because adults are also scared of becoming grilled sausages! When they were little, like you, their mommies and daddies also told them the fairy tale about the good old man in the sky. But you already know that there is no good old man out there, don’t you?” the textbook answers.
Last year Russia enacted a law that bans the distribution of “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” to minors. The controversial legislation effectively makes it illegal to present homosexuality in a positive light or even to suggest that gay relationships are equal to heterosexual relationships.
The law also makes it risky to distribute materials on gay rights, or simply to show non-traditional orientation publicly, assuming that minors could be potential witnesses.
No site blocking without a judge’s ruling
Following “complaints of citizens” as well as requests from the General Prosecutor’s Office and member of parliament Alina Kabaeva, Roskomnadzor stated that “the persons responsible for providing the information on gay.looo.ch and looo.ch cannot be identified,” since these sites are hosted in the US – “outside the jurisdiction of law enforcement bodies of the Russian Federation.”
In addition, the sites are “not registered [in Russia] as mass media and are not subject to the provisions of the legislation on mass media.”
“Considering the above, administrative proceedings under Article 6.21 of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Violations cannot be initiated.”
Implied in the regulator’s answer is that in such circumstances, the legislation banning homosexuality propaganda cannot be applied to block an Internet site without a judge’s ruling.
“In order to restrict access to these sites, we believe it expedient to use the existing legal framework for the identification of forbidden content,” Roskomnadzor suggests.
Apple called to stand with Russian gays
Russia has witnessed a surge of homophobia recently. In December, Ivan Okhlobystin, an actor, showman and a former Orthodox priest, publicly stated that the people he usually calls “sodomites” should be “shoved alive into furnaces.” No reaction from the Russian authorities or the Russian Orthodox Church followed.
On the contrary, a few weeks later the Church publicly supported Okhlobystin’s call for a referendum to criminalize male homosexuality based on an article of the former Soviet Union’s criminal code.
LGBT organizations have called on Apple to stop doing business with Okhlobystin’s former employer Euroset, Russia’s leading mobile device retailer, whose CEO Alexander Malis showed some solidarity with the actor.
