Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez accused the press of “media terrorism” during a Ministers Council meeting this week, following reports on contamination of drinking water in the central region of the country. Chavez attributed the stories to an attempt to damage his image in an electoral year.
After speaking with Chavez, Venezuela’s attorney general Luisa Ortega announced on Wednesday that she would ask the courts to order the media to publish a technical report supporting the information published about water contamination. The prosecutor’s office also opened a criminal investigation into the news outlets that published the stories.
Two Azerbaijani musicians who insulted the country’s president during a concert in Baku are said to have been tortured by police while in detention. Jamal Ali of the band Bulustan criticised President Ilham Aliyev and his late mother during a concert at an opposition rally on Saturday. After an argument with concert organisers, he was dragged away by police with bandmate Natiq Kamilov and a third man. A court charged all three with hooliganism and sentenced them to 10 days’ detention. During the hearing the two musicians said they had been beaten by police and were refused contact with their families or lawyers.
Saint Petersburg authorities have surpassed their colleagues throughout Russia in persecuting gay community by passing a local law that actually forbids any LGBT activities, including pride parades and human rights activism, and by planning to make this ban Russia-wide.
Last week a scandalous law “against promotion of homosexuality” came into force in Saint-Petersburg. It stipulates fines up to 500 thousand roubles (£10,782 GBP) for any activities that can be referred to as “public propaganda of homosexualism, lesbianism, bisexuality and transgenderism among minors”. According to Saint-Petersburg lawmakers, such propaganda means mass and unregulated distribution of information which might prove that “traditional and non-traditional relationship are socially equal”.
Human rights activists have expressed numerous concerns over the law as any public move of gay community may accidentally be seen, heard or read by minors, which means that any public move may be punished by fines — potentially disastrous for financially stretched gay rights groups.
The latest concern has been expressed by Madonna who is coming to perform in Saint Petersburg in August. On her Facebook page she wrote that she will “speak up for the gay community, to support the gay community and to give strength and inspiration to anyone who is or feels oppressed”. She called Saint-Petersburg law a “ridiculous atrocity” and promised to speak about it during her show in the city.
The law author — Vladimir Putin’s United Russia deputy Vitaly Milonov — said Madonna and her concert organisers are most likely to face fines and that he “will have to attend her concert to monitor the concert’s moral content”. Previously Milonov mentioned he had planned forbid Rammstein concerts in Saint-Petersburg.
Together with his colleagues Vitaly Milonov is planning to introduce a bill to the Russian State Duma banning “homosexual propaganda” across Russia. “United Russia” has a majority in State Duma, and rights activists fear that such federal law could pass.
Today “antihomosexual” laws, similar to the one passed in Saint-Petersburg, already exist in Ryazan, Archangelsk and Kostroma regions, but none of them has caused such a wide and scandalous response from civil society yet.
The passing of the law in Saint Petersburg was marked with a number of protest actions in Russia. The European Parliament has condemned the law, stating it “violates the freedom of expression regarding sexual orientation”, which is against European Convention on Human Rights. The US State Department has appealed to Russian authorities calling them to respect the rights of gay community in Russia instead of violating them.
The Kremlin doesn’t seem to take these statements seriously, and nor do Russia’s federal TV channels. TV remains the most popular media for most Russians, and channels don’t comply with objectivity rules when covering topics concerning LGBT people. That is why some 75 per cent of Russian citizens, according to SuperJob research centre survey, support the law against homosexual propaganda.
None of Russian cities has ever held a sanctioned gay pride. All were unauthorized and ended up with their participants beaten by aggressive ultranationalists and religious activists or arrested by police.
The only sanctioned action when LGBT people could march through the city with flags and placards was a 4 February march against Vladimir Putin’s return to the Kremlin in Moscow. Tens of thousands people marched through one of the central streets in columns of diverse opposition and civil movements, including the gay community. And even there, during an event which was meant to celebrate democratic values and freedom of expression, gays received tellings-off and disrespectful jokes from some protesters.
Among all the repressed minorities in Russia LGBT community is one of the most vulnerable, usually causing less solidarity, than others.
Last night, the Hammersmith Apollo arena in London was invaded by thousands of Russian speakers who came to see the only UK tour date of the iconic St Petersburg rock band DDT.
The band, founded in 1980 by lead vocalist Yuri Shevchuk, has been at the forefront of Russian rock ever since.
Unlike most other Russian rock bands of the 1980s, they never traded their mother tongue for English: a difficult choice, but one that paid off in the long run. DDT also quickly acquired the status of dissidents, experiencing frequent rows with the authorities. Recently, Shevchuk’s name hit the headlines again for openly confronting Vladimir Putin in a heated debate and for partnering with Bono to save the Khimki forest from destruction.
DDT presented their new album “Inache” (“Otherwise”), surprising the public with unusual sounds and stunning visuals. In the final part of the concert, the performance shifted towards the lyrical ballads the band is famous for.
Opening the show, Shevchuk said: “Why is this show called “Otherwise”? Because many people in Russia want to live otherwise. Tonight, we will say goodbye to the glorious past and will crawl into the brutal reality of today, as we want Russia to have a brighter future”.
Index spoke to Shevchuk after the concert. The star gave a statement in support of the Sing for Democracy project, which is using the Eurovision contest to build momentum and call for human rights in Azerbaijan, the host country for the musical competition this year. Recently, two musicians were arrested after performing a concert in Baku: they have not been released yet, and according to insistent allegations they might have been tortured. In Russia, the case of punk band Pussy Riot is still firing up the public opinion. Shevchuk told Index:
“A musician is a very peculiar type of being. As in Azerbaijan, so in Russia, so in London — a musician is a being of freedom. A musician does not have any owners, except for God. You thus must not offend musicians, as they are the freest of all people. Because music is not generated from anywhere; it comes out of freedom, of inner freedom. Hence: hands off the musicians!”
