The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Russia’s ban on LGBTQ rallies violates the human rights of protestors.
The Strasbourg, France based court made the decision earlier today that Russia is violating the citizen’s freedom of assembly rights and rights to “not be discriminated against.” According to AP, this is primarily by Russia’s rejection of any LGBTQ themed events.
As the court said at the ruling, “the ban on holding LGBT public assemblies imposed by the domestic authorities did not correspond to a pressing social need and was thus not necessary in a democratic society.”
This ruling came after 51 applications were filed by seven activists earlier this year to have the European Court of Human Rights look into the matter.
But according to the Moscow Times, theses activists weren’t into submitting those applications just for the good of the people. In their applications, they asked to be compensated a range of pay between 5,000 euros ($5,600) to 500,000 euros ($566,000). Thankfully, the ECHR did not give into this greediness and instead said the ruling itself constituted “sufficient just satisfaction.”
The court also sees that Russia is violating the European Convention of Human Rights, of which Russia is a participant.
The European Court of Human Rights says that Russia cannot excuse the outright rejection and banning of LGBTQ themed public events as a precaution against public disorder.
This would also affect the Gay Propaganda law that Vladimir Putin signed into law in 2013, which is the main excuse used to ban gay events.
Despite the law being created to prevent the spreading of LGBTQ themed content to youth both online and in public, the law has already targeted one Russian youth.
We'll see how, or if, Russia responds to the ruling.
h/t: AP, Moscow Times
