Silence is death

The action in Paris against Russian law on the prohibition of promotion of homosexuality among minors

In Paris, on September 13, the action "Silence is death in Russia" was organized on Square on September 13. The LGBT community of France and human rights organizations urge the Russian authorities to cancel the law on the prohibition on the promotion of homosexuality among minors.

- One of our main requirements is the abolition of this homophobic law. - says the president of the Russian -Liberte Association Alexei Prokopyev - in addition to our dozens of organizations, the action will organize the action, this is human rights activists, social organizations, and organizations that protect LGBT rights. One of the main tasks is to support and show solidarity with all the people who suffer from homophobia in Russia. We want to demonstrate the concern of the international community by the fact that in Russia cases of violence against representatives of sexual minorities are increasingly frequent. We believe that this is due to the homophobic climate in Russia, which is associated with the actions of the authorities. We want to prove that the tolerance, the equality of the rights of all people, regardless of their sexual orientation, religion and nationality, is extremely important.

- Why does the action have such a name?

- Unfortunately, homophobia kills, it is very often associated with violence. And the fact that people are silent, no one pays attention to problems is death for members of the LGBT community. And we hope that, especially on the eve of the Olympic Games in Sochi, the authorities will hear us, and measures will be taken, firstly, against homophobia, and of course, towards the abolition of these laws, which, I am sure, do not comply, for example, the Constitution of the Russian Federation.

- This is not the first time that you organize protests in Paris, who is participating in them? Russians living in France, or the French themselves support your slogans?

- We often hold completely different actions: both conferences on the topic of corruption and actions on the topic of democracy. We went out when a sentence was sentenced to Alexei Navalny. Different people come to stocks of different topics, but we call everyone. Of course, it is clear that Russian students and citizens of Russia, temporarily or already long in France, are quite actively and willingly participate in our shares. For example, in the protest after the sentence to Navalny there were a lot of students from Russia. Today's action is organized more than a LGBT community from France, so I think that, of course, there will be more French activists, but many of our compatriots will come.

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  Dinara Setdikova

  Information Service editor of the RS