Russians report rainbows to security forces because they remind them of LGBT propaganda

The Russian Duma has asked the media monitoring agency Roskomnadzor to officially declare that there is no link between rainbows and the LGBT community.

Source: Russian news agency TASS

Details: Vladislav Davankov, Deputy Speaker of the State Duma (the lower chamber of the Russian parliament), noted that there has been an increase in cases of citizens complaining to law enforcement agencies about LGBT propaganda after seeing an image of a rainbow.

"Businesses, non-governmental organisations and cultural organisations are afraid to use the image of a rainbow because the rainbow flag is also used as a symbol of the LGBT community," the Deputy Speaker said.

Davankov reiterated that Roskomnadzor has approved criteria for assessing information that promotes "non-traditional sexual relations". However, the criteria do not contain any provisions that unambiguously indicate the possibility of administrative or criminal accountability arising for using a rainbow image as a symbol of the LGBT community.

Background:

• The Russian Federation has banned "propaganda of LGBT, paedophilia and gender reassignment" by law.
• Rainbows and rainbow flags are found in various cultures and are used by various organisations, movements, regions and countries. They are symbols of the peace movement and native American peoples. The rainbow flag is the flag of a state in Brazil and a Peruvian city. The best-known version of the rainbow flag is the Pride flag, a symbol of the LGBT movement.

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