Talk:Russian anti-LGBT law

Systematic Western Bias
Certain phrases such as:

''The passing of the law was met with major international backlash, as critics considered it an attempt to effectively ban the promotion LGBT rights and culture in the country. ''

Fail to mention that this criticism, regardless of one's opinion on the issue, and mostly emanates from the west: In fact, with the exception of the Russian opinions on the law, there are no non-Western perspectives offered in this whole text.

I think that corrections should be made to better reflect the reality that there is a world outside of the US, Canada and EU and we don't need a whole article on a Russian law interpreted entirely by Westerners and Russian expats, of whom upon reviewal of the sources (where they even exist!)say such erroneous things as "fired for being gay", which has yet to happen in Russia for what I can tell, seeing as homosexuality is not a crime within the country (and as a native speaker of Russian, I regularily check the news for this). Often times, people who are gay are fired for their actions which pertain to the law (such as the case of Dmitry Isakov, who was for better or worse arrested for holding a sign with a pro-LGBT message on it), however, this is not the same some of the statements that I have since corrected, such as Alexander Yermoshkin being fired for his sexuality, which simply isn't true.

This sort of thing repeats over and over again in the article: Purely Western media perspectives, false claims about people arrested for "being gay", etc.

This is a contentious issue I know, so I ask kindly that you please assume good faith.

Solntsa90 (talk) 22:47, 28 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Have you checked http://www.gayrussia.eu/? Maybe you will find the information you are missing on the Russian mass media.
 * About Alexander Yermoshkin, you can read the story from him http://www.petertatchellfoundation.org/russia/russian-lgbt-teachers-sacked-because-their-sexuality
 * --Ecelan (talk) 22:50, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Another point I'd like to raise: Okkupay Pedofilay has consistently denied targeting anyone but pedophiles, and in fact, in the Russian media it has been suggested that this is a strategy to create the impression that the West supports pedophilia and their rights every time they labeled someone Okkupay snared on the internet through a chat with an underage decoy, and in fact does more to conflate the issue that

Basically, if we say "Okkupay Pedofilay attacked them for being gay" which 1.) isn't true and 2.) plays directly into their hands, we basically conflate every gay person on earth with the actions of those who were kidnapped by OP, that is, people who were soliciting sex on the internet with minors and showed up at the door, only to be greeted by Okkupay Pedofilay. Solntsa90 (talk) 23:24, 28 June 2014 (UTC)


 * It is kind of strange that you would believe Okkupay Pedofilay over your own eyes. If you watch the videos, you will notice they target minors and youth. Can minors be pedophiles? Anyway, the strategy of persecuting gays as pedophiles is quite old. --Ecelan (talk) 22:50, 3 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Yepp, comparing gays to paedophiles works well for Putin. It's used like a red herring to distract people from societal, economic and political problems he didn't solve or even touched (we should put that in the article!), not to mention the fact that there are questions whether he actually was elected or not.--86.3.200.81 (talk) 01:34, 22 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Since when treating people with respect is Western bias? Besides, Russia is a Western country linguisticaly, religiously, geographically, historically, culturally and so on. A the fact it is ruled by a autocratic leader, makes no difference. Italy had Mussolini, but it was still Western--86.3.200.81 (talk) 01:34, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Scare quotes
The second paragraph has five pairs of scare quotes. This is in contradiction with the principle of neutrality. I think the paragraph should be rewritten in such a way that scare quotes aren’t needed (e.g. “The officially stated goal of the law [...]”) or the quotes outright removed. Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV (talk) 20:54, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Most of them are actually not scare quotes, but referring to them as actual legal terms. ViperSnake151   Talk  22:03, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Either way, thanks for improving it. Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV (talk) 03:57, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

References for this article.
I have looked at a sample of this article and note that there are a large number of un-referenced statements. For example, in the following from the third paragraph of the intro section there are a number of statements, with the only provided reference being for a statement on homophobic violence. Please address the issue of referencing in this article as a whole. Thank you. KING (talk) 04:59, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

The Kremlin's backing of the law appealed to the Russian nationalist far right, but gained broad support among the Russian populace. The law was condemned by the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe (of which Russia is a member), by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and by human rights groups, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The statute was criticized for its broad and ambiguous wording (including the aforementioned "raises interest in" and "among minors"), which many critics characterized as being an effective ban on publicly promoting the rights and culture of the LGBT community. The law was also criticized for leading to an increase and justification of homophobic violence, while the implications of the laws in relation to the then-upcoming Winter Olympics being hosted by Sochi were also cause for concern, as the Olympic Charter contains language explicitly barring various forms of discrimination.
 * Incorrect, WP:LEAD states that excluding statements about a living person and cited facts for WP:DYK, the lead of an article does not necessarily need to have footnotes as long as the corresponding statements are cited in the article body. This is a style-related practice, and all of these details are already cited in the article proper.. ViperSnake151   Talk  01:15, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. KING (talk) 07:46, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

GA status
I've tried to improve the article but I think it has some systematic issues that prevent it from being the quality expected of a GA article.

Prose: clarity is lacking in some places, for example:

"In 2010, Russia was fined by the European Court of Human Rights under allegations by Alexeyev that cities were discriminating against gays by refusing to approve pride parades. Although claiming a risk of violence, the court interpreted the decisions as being in support of groups which oppose such demonstrations" This wording is not clear and does not do a good job of explaining what the verdict Alekseyev v. Russia was all about.

Organization is not ideal. For example, protests are discussed in the "criticism" section rather than the separate "protests" section. Violence against LGBT people is placed in the "criticism" section. But this has been studied empirically, it is not a "criticism" as much as an observed effect of the law. Perhaps alongside other research into the public health implications.

Sometimes the article does not follow the cited sources.

Article states, "Moscow upheld a ruling blocking Nikolay Alexeyev's requests for 100 years' worth of permission to hold Moscow Pride annually, citing the possibility of public disorder." Source states: "Moscow's top court has upheld a ban on gay pride marches in the Russian capital for the next 100 years." One of these is wrong. If the source is wrong, why is it being cited? (This is the only ref I checked. So the issue of failed verification could be much bigger).

Reliable sources: Gawker, the Mirror and International Business Times are not reliable sources. There are other sketchy-looking sources cited as well.

On the other hand, the article has notable gaps in its coverage. Freedom of speech and expression is hardly mentioned at all. Yet, this is the main reason for criticism of the law. Even some people who do not necessarily support LGBT rights oppose restrictions on freedom of expression. The article doesn't cite any academic literature at all (which does exist!), except a few that I just added. I think this is a major deficit because the media don't always report correctly on legal issues. The dependence on media reports also means that a lot of information on the law's long term effects is not discussed at all. Prior to my additions today, the article made no mention that the ECtHR has ruled that anti-LGBT propaganda laws violate the European Convention on Human Rights. There is still no mention of the Fedotova v. Russia case in which the UN Human Rights Committee found a violation of the ICCPR.

Ping the original GA nominator. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  12:29, 29 September 2021 (UTC)