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                  HRW: Russia Fails to Protect LGBT Community

   by VOA News

   Human Rights Watch says Russian authorities have failed "in their
   obligation to prevent and prosecute homophobic violence."

   The human rights group said Monday that growing numbers of lesbian,
   gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people have been attacked and
   harassed across Russia since a 2013 controversial "propaganda" law that
   "effectively legalized discrimination against LGBT people and cast them
   as second-class citizens."

   An 85-page report entitled[1] License to Harm: Violence and Harassment
   Against LGBT People and Activists in Russia is based on dozens of
   interviews with LGBT people and activists in 16 Russian cities who
   experienced attacks or harassment because of their sexual orientation
   or gender identity.

   Tanya Cooper, an HRW Russia researcher, said violence against LGBT
   people in Russia is "unmistakably motivated by homophobia, but the
   authorities deliberately ignore that these are hate crimes and fail to
   protect victims."

   Human Rights Watch found that instead of publicly denouncing anti-LGBT
   violence and rhetoric, Russia's leadership has either remained silent
   or, in some cases, engaged in explicit anti-LGBT hate speech.

   The report quoted prominent news anchor Dmitry Kiselyov as saying on
   state television last year: "I think that just imposing fines on gays
   for homosexual propaganda among teenagers is not enough."

   Kiselyov said gay people "should be banned from donating blood, sperm.
   And their hearts, in case of a car accident, should be buried in the
   ground or burned as unsuitable for the continuation of life."

   Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly dismissed accusations
   that the LGBT community is persecuted in Russia. Since returning to the
   Kremlin for the third time in 2012, Putin has pushed an increasingly
   conservative agenda, seeking to promote Russia as the antithesis of the
   West.
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   [2]http://www.voanews.com/content/hrw-russia-fails-to-protect-lgbt-comm
   unity/2559185.html

References

   1. http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/12/15/russia-impunity-anti-lgbt-violence
   2. http://www.voanews.com/content/hrw-russia-fails-to-protect-lgbt-community/2559185.html