Tag: Russia

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US and Russia come to agreement on Syrian chemical weapons

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said announced an ambitious plan to transfer Syria’s massive chemical weapons stockpile to international control by the middle of next year, at which point they would be destroyed.

A potential U.N. Security Council resolution could authorize sanctions — even military action — if President Bashar Assad’s government fails to comply.

Kerry said any violations will result in “measures” from the Security Council, while Lavrov said the violations must be sent to the Security Council from the board of the chemical weapons convention before sanctions — short of the use of force — would be considered.

“Any violations of procedures … would be looked at by the Security Council and if they are approved, the Security Council would take the required measures, concrete measures,” Lavrov said. “Nothing is said about the use of force or about any automatic sanctions. All violations should be approved by the Security Council.”

Several questions remain, including how realistic is it to assume chemical weapons can be rounded  up in the middle of a civil war.

(source)

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Russian vigilantes torture and rape gay man at gunpoint

An ethnic Uzbek man was reportedly raped at gunpoint in Novosibirsk, Russia after being threatened by a group of “six or seven” vigilantes, who filmed the alleged incident and posted it online where it began circulating on the mobile phone application WhatsApp, Radio Free Europe reports:

The series of short clips, making the rounds on the mobile phone application WhatsApp show the victim, who seems to be an ethnic Uzbek, being bullied into confessing that he is gay.

He is asked to identify himself and is stripped of his clothes, which are later burned. He is then handcuffed, beaten, insulted, and threatened with a gun. Ultimately, he is forced to sodomize himself by sitting on a bottle, which is then pushed with a bat.

The man, visibly terrified, weeps throughout much of the ordeal.

Radio Free Europe tracked down one of the alleged attackers:

The Uzbek-speaking source, speaking from Russia, confirms that the victim was targeted because he is gay.

“We made him sit on a bottle so that he repents for his sins and comes to reason,” he told RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service. “We did this to protect the dignity of Uzbeks. We live and work here, we are in contact with people of different nationalities. There will be no respect for us otherwise.”

According to the purported assailant, the attack took place on September 11 in Novosibirsk, where he himself is a student, and all the participants were ethnic Uzbeks.

He says the man was first detained by a group of Russian antigay vigilantes who lured him to a fake date through a social-networking website.

(source)

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Cher says “no” to Sochi Olympics over Russian anti-gay laws

The LGBT community’s diva stands with us.  Cher passes on opening the Sochi 2014 Winter Games:

“I can’t name names but my friend called who is a big oligarch over there, and asked me if I’d like to be an ambassador for the Olympics and open the show. I immediately said no. I want to know why all of this gay hate just exploded over there. He said the Russian people don’t feel the way the government does.”

Via Memeographs

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BBC report shows violence targeting LGBT community in Russia

The BBC produced this report based on a Russian vigilante group that not only hunts down LGBT citizens, but posts the violence done to them via video. In one, a man is being forced to drink urine to “cure him” of being a homosexual. In another, a metal bucket is placed over the man’s head and hit with what looks like a baseball bat and a police truncheon.

Attacks like this are being carried out across Russia by an ultra-nationalist group. It claims its objective is to name, shame and punish suspected pedophiles.

However, the aggressors in the videos seem to put all gays and lesbians in the same “category” as pedophiles.

In another online clip, a woman armed with a gun and dressed in camouflage jokes that she’s “out on safari” hunting for paedophiles and gays. She starts shooting towards an imaginary “rainbow target”.

The woman’s name is Yekaterina, and she lives in St Petersburg, where she heads the local branch of the vigilante group “Occupy Paedophilia”.

“Our priority is uncovering cases of paedophilia,” Yekaterina explains to me. “But we’re also against the promotion of homosexuality. And if – along the way – we encounter people of non-traditional sexual orientation, we can kill two birds with one stone.”

Watch the report from BBC above. Very grim stuff.

Read more at the BBC.

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President Obama’s quick “hello” to Putin as he arrives in Russia for G20 Summit

That’s it, folks!

As President Obama arrived for the G20 Summit, he had what will probably be his only “meeting” with President Putin of Russia in this brief welcome moment with the Russian president.

Due to recent civil rights legislation in Russia, President Obama will not be sitting down with Putin to discuss any specific USA/Russia issues at this summit. BUT Obama will be meeting with LGBT groups from Russia. Good for Obama for showing compassion and outreach to the gays and lesbians of Russia.

Jonathan Capehart has written a great column on the divergence of LGBT rights and issues in Russia and the USA, and how the two leaders have handled the issues differently:

Just as the United States is expanding the reach of the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law, Russia is hell bent on denying protection to its LGBT people. Take what happened yesterday. In Washington, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that legally married same-sex couples would be eligible for veterans benefits. In Moscow, Alekei Zhuravlev, the deputy of the Russian State Duma, proposed an amendment that would deny parental custody to gay parents.

Each nation is riding a particular wave of momentum. The Supreme Court ruling in June that the so-called Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional set off a series of decisions that make same-sex couples whole in the eyes of the federal government. Meanwhile, Putin signed into law a bill passed unanimously in June by the Duma that banned “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations,” the definition of which is so broad and vague that the lives of LGBT Russians and tourists have been deemed illegal. A few days later, Putin signed legislation banning the adoption of Russian children by same-sex couples from nations that have adopted marriage equality. This prohibition applies to heterosexual couples and single adults from countries recognizing same-sex marriages.

Read the entire essay at WashingtonPost.com

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Russian lawmaker introduces bill to void gays and lesbians of parental rights

A Russian lawmaker has introduced legislation that would nullify the parental rights of gay parents.

From PinkNews:

Lawmaker Alexei Zhuravlyov has proposed a bill that will would deny gay parents custody over their own children. If passed it would make “non traditional sexual orientation” a basis for the deprivation of parental rights. It places same-sex sexual orientation in the same category as alcohol and drug abuse.

If passed, the law would follow on from a piece of legislation signed into law by President Putin in July that banned gay and lesbian couples from foreign countries from adopting children.

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President Obama to meet with Russian LGBT activists during G20 summit

Following his cancellation of a bilateral meeting with President Vladimir Putin, U.S. President Barack Obama may infuriate the Kremlin further by meeting Russian human rights activists, including LGBT rights groups, during his upcoming trip to St. Petersburg for the G20 summit.

Four Russian non-governmental organizations told BuzzFeed Monday they had been invited to the meeting, scheduled for this Thursday at St. Petersburg’s Crowne Plaza Hotel.

Obama was due to hold a one-on-one meeting with Putin in Moscow before heading to the summit, but abruptly called that off last month in the wake of deteriorating relations and Russia’s sheltering of NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden. Putin has repeatedly accused members of Russia’s civil society as being in the pay of the U.S. State Department.

Thursday’s meeting is not unique or unprecedented. Obama met with civil society and opposition activists during his last visit to Russia in 2009. George W. Bush met with NGOs during the G8 summit in 2006.

(source)

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Russian government “reassures” International Olympic Committee gays will not be discriminated against at Sochi Olympics

The Russian government has “reassured” the International Olympic Committee that they will not discriminate against gay people during the Sochi Olympics. Kinda, sorta.

The IOC received a letter from Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak giving reassurances the host country will comply fully with the Olympic Charter’s provision against discrimination of any kind.

“The Russian Federation guarantees the fulfillment of its obligations before the International Olympic Committee in its entirety,” Kozak said.

However, Kozak did not back down on the issue of the new law, which penalizes anyone who distributes information aimed at persuading minors that “nontraditional” relationships are normal or attractive. The law applies equally to everyone and “cannot be regarded as discrimination based on sexual orientation,” Kozak said.

The letter still leaves open the question of what would happen to Olympic athletes or fans if they make statements or gestures that could be considered propaganda.

(via JMG)