In 2013, Russia instituted its ban on "spreading propaganda for non-traditional sexual relations."
Since then, research shows that anti-LGBT hate crimes have doubled in the country. In 2010, there were only 18 people sentenced for crimes against the LGBT community, and that number was 65 in 2015. Out of the 250 hate crimes analyzed, 200 of them were for murder. Most of the victims were gay men.
Svetlana Zakharova, a board member of the Russian LGBT Network, spoke to Reuters saying, "Offenders have become more aggressive and less fearful. It seems to them that, to some extent, the government supports their actions. Many perpetrators openly talk about their crimes as noble deeds.”
Because homosexuality is illegal in Russia, researches say the numbers are a lot lower than reality. A lot of hate crimes go unreported, and aren't investigated or persecuted appropriately.
Sadly, this hostility between the Russian government and the LGBT community has been going on for years, and is nothing new. Over the summer the reports of Chechnya cracking down on the LGBT community. Putin refused to comment and Chechnya was allowed to carry on.
As of 2016, Russia was ranked as the second least friendly country to LGBT people, with Azerbaijan having the worst ranking.
How long is this going to go
How long is this going to go on and why isn't the rest of the world taking a stronger stance on this?
Sad how men are manipulated
Sad how men are manipulated through homophobia causing psychological hysteria.
Why are they so threatened by homosexuality when it harms no one?
They want to look tough to reaffirm heterosexuality in public as if violence made them more heterosexual; they are obsessively afraid of being read as gay, but what they are actually showing is that they have weak and easy-to-manipulate minds because they are unable to scape the trap they have been thrown into by making them afraid of homosexuality which has no effect on anybody else's lives.
Putin, you have blood on your hands.