Russia’s Supreme Court effectively bans LGBTQ2 activism in landmark ruling

In response, a spokesperson for the UN Human Rights Office said the LBGTQ2 community's situation in Russia was "just going from bad to worse."

Russia‘s Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that LGBT activists should be designated as “extremists”, in a move that representatives of gay and transgender people fear will lead to arrests and prosecutions.

The presiding judge announced that he had endorsed a request from the justice ministry to ban what it called “the international LGBT social movement.”

The move is part of a pattern of increasing restrictions in Russia on expressions of sexual orientation and gender identity, including laws outlawing the promotion of “non-traditional” sexual relations and banning legal or medical changes of gender.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk urged Russian authorities to “repeal, immediately, laws that place improper restrictions on the work of human rights defenders or that discriminate against LGBT people.”

President Vladimir Putin, expected shortly to announce that he will seek a new six-year term in March, has long sought to promote an image of Russia as a guardian of traditional moral values in contrast with a decadent West.

In a speech last year, he said the West was welcome to adopt “rather strange, in my view, new-fangled trends like dozens of genders, and gay parades” but had no right to impose them on other countries.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters before the court decision was announced that the Kremlin was “not following” the case and had no comment on it.

The court took around five hours from the start of proceedings to issue its ruling. The hearing was closed to media, but reporters were allowed in to hear the verdict.