RUSSIA/FRANCE/FILE: Russian gays call on the world's athletes to show support against recent anti-gay laws on the eve of the World Athletics Championships in Moscow

Record ID: 277949

  • Title: RUSSIA/FRANCE/FILE: Russian gays call on the world's athletes to show support against recent anti-gay laws on the eve of the World Athletics Championships in Moscow
  • Date: 9th August 2013
  • Summary: T-SHIRT READING 'ALL OUT FOR SOCHI'
  • Embargoed: 24th August 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France
  • Country: France
  • Topics: Crime,General,Politics,Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVABR3L0HDBZ05Q6QOML9Y46T2GG
  • Story Text: Russian gay activists called on the athletes descending on Moscow for the world athletics championships to show support for gays and lesbians in Russia in the wake of recently-adopted anti-gay laws.
    The competition of the world's leading track-and-field athletes will start on Saturday (August 10) at the Luzhniki stadium.
    Multiple American 800m champion Nick Symmonds became on Wednesday (August 7) the first competitor at the world athletics championships to criticise Russia's anti-gay propaganda law but maintains he will say no more out of respect for the host nation.
    Symmonds, fifth in last year's Olympic 800m final and a medal prospect in Moscow next week, wrote in his blog for Runner's World magazine that he "disagreed" with the controversial new legislation, which outlaws the promotion of homosexuality and has become a political hot potato for next year's Sochi winter Olympics, when it will apply to athletes and spectators.
    U.S. President Barack Obama weighed into the controversy late on Tuesday (August 6), saying he had "no patience" for Russia on the issue, while other senior sporting figures have also spoken out against the development.
    The Russian country-wide anti-gay law was passed after a similar legislation had been put forward in St. Petersburg by local lawmaker Vitaly Milonov. He has since become a champion of Russia's anti-gay movement.
    Speaking to Reuters on Friday (August 9) in Moscow, Milonov dismissed concerns about the law ahead of the athletics championships and the Winter Olympics as an act of those who can't compete with Russian athletes.
    "As they are afraid of Russian athletes, they are trying to find a way to avoid fair competition. Well, if you are that progressive and you are that good, try. Sport is the world, you understand. The sports competitions are a place where there can't be any politics," Milonov said.
    Homosexuality, punished with jail terms in the Soviet Union, was decriminalised in Russia in 1993, but much of the gay community remains underground and prejudice runs deep.
    Milonov, who says Orthodox Christian values are the basis for the anti-gay law, said repeatedly that he understood Europe had the right to choose its own values, but that Europeans do not acknowledge the same right for Russians.
    "The right for a contorted and perverted behaviour is considered a value by them now. I grew up on the classic European history, and I can say that the European Union founders would have been terrified by those values which their successors now have," Milonov told Reuters on Friday.
    "Nobody has ever got arrested for his sexual orientation here in Russia. Don't succumb to that hysteria that perverts across Europe have started. Our highest-paid artists have a non-traditional sexual orientation, and no one of them faces any discrimination," he added.
    Six gay activists were arrested in Moscow in late July after one of them stood near a children's library in central Moscow with a banner reading "It is normal to be gay". They were belived to be first to be detained under the new law.
    Arrests were frequent at similar gay protests in Russia over the past few years, while attempts of gay activists to stage Moscow's first gay pride were futile as their applications were invariably turned down by the Moscow mayor's office.
    Several gay rallies in Moscow in St. Petersburg were broken up by anti-gay activists.
    "This law means that you can get arrested even if you say something positive, simply positive about being gay. It has an impact on all the layers of public communication, including culture, including movies. It impacts all Russians," said a senior campaign manager at All Out, NGO fighting for equality rights, Guillaume Bonnet.
    All Out activists met with IOC officials at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland on Wednesday (August 7) to voice their concerns.
    "The world will be watching Russia and whether athletes and visitors will be arrested under these laws. Also, most importantly, for Russians it's really important that the global pressure succeeds in taking (down) this anti-gay law before the Olympic Games, but also after," Bonnet told Reuters.
    IOC President Jacques Rogge said on Friday in Moscow that Russia must explain how it will implement its controversial anti-gay propaganda law and detail its impact on next year's Sochi Winter Games.
    The International Olympic Committee wants clarification of how the law will be applied, despite having received assurances from Games organisers, Rogge said.
    Russian gay activists called on the athletes taking part in both the world athletic championships and in the Olympic Games to show support to Russia's gay community.
    "I think it will not go as far (as arrests). I think our officials have not yet gone crazy enough to do this. But what is important to me is the position of the athletes themselves in regards to the situation we found ourselves in here. Their support is very important to us," Russian gay activist Alexei Davydov said.
    Critics of the law have said it effectively disallows all gay rights rallies and could be used to prosecute anyone voicing support for homosexuals. President Vladimir Putin also banned same-sex couples from adopting children.
    Stephen Fry, the openly gay British writer and television personality, on Wednesday published an open letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron, IOC President Jacques Rogge and London Olympics head Sebastian Coe comparing the Sochi Games to the Nazi-run 1936 Berlin summer Olympics, which he said were a "stain on the Five Rings".
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