"Surprised that they started checking"

Chelyabinsk police officers were instructed to find a resident of the city who insulted the representative of the LGBT community on the social network

The prosecutor's office of Chelyabinsk instructed the head of the city Ministry of Internal Affairs Sergey Mironov to check the actions of a resident of the city of Alexander Lenter - they suspect of insulting the activist of the public movement of LGBT "Solidarity" by Artem Sh. The prosecutors received an application from the victim.

On December 26 last year, Artem left VKontakte a comment that propaganda of homosexual relations cannot exist, since “propaganda of relations” does not exist. In response, the Chelyabinets called him words, which prohibit ethics and Roskomnadzor. Artem submitted an application to the prosecutor’s office asking for an assessment whether the words of Alexander Licter are insults and whether they fall under Article 5.61 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation. And, surprisingly, he immediately received an answer on the merits.

“It is necessary to establish the place of residence of the thought of Alexander, as well as to interview this citizen on the facts set forth in the statement, after the verification material to send to the prosecutor's office of the district of Chelyabinsk at the place of residence of the thought of the thought of A.,” Tatyana Polezhaeva wrote to the Chelyabinsk Ministry of Internal Affairs.

“Of course, I am a little surprised that the Chelyabinsk prosecutor’s office decided to really initiate an audit,” Artem Sh. Told Novaya Gazeta, “However, I believe that they are doing this because they simply haven’t been stuffed with formal refusals for such matters. It seems to me that the Chelyabinsk prosecutor’s office or a specific employee who made a decision on my application simply did not encounter LGBT people to write statements due to insults on the basis of sexual orientation. Those prosecutors and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which receive such statements regularly, always refuse, motivating almost identical replies.

According to Artem, he had previously submitted applications to law enforcement agencies on the facts of insults, but even the case did not reach the audit.

-He turned to the prosecutor's office of the Stavropol Territory and St. Petersburg about 4-5 times in the last year, probably. Everywhere the result is the same: either the appeal is sent without any requirements and indications to the police, which then makes a formal refusal “for the absence of the composition ...”, or they themselves give a formal refusal, while without any linguistic examinations. Complaints to the higher prosecutor's office, of course, have never brought anything either.

Artem believes that there is a chance to bring Alexander the Summer to justice, because insults are “too obvious”. At the same time, he emphasizes that he is not going to show any additional claims to the man who offended him: “There is enough fine. I am not looking for any benefit for myself. "

Even if the thought is fined, this will definitely not be a precedent for law enforcement agencies and will not change the practice, the applicant is sure. In each situation with insults of LGBT representatives, everything will depend on the "specific employee who is conducting the case."

Alexander Lysvets himself, in a conversation with the Novaya correspondent, said that the law enforcement agencies had not yet come to him and did not call for interrogation, and he did not refuse his words about Artem S. LGBT move.

Insults against representatives of non -traditional sexual orientation are allowed not only to the townsfolk and not only on the Internet - there are both officials and leading federal television channels. But law enforcement agencies reluctantly respond to reports of crimes from representatives of LGBT.

So, in June last year, the police refused to institute criminal proceedings against the mayor of Nevinnomysk Mikhail Minenkov, who called the Vandalov who attacked the post of calling the police, “gays” and “***” [Roskomnadzor]. Representatives of the LGBT community considered that the official’s statement is offensive and equates them to criminals, but they achieved nothing.

Prior to this, law enforcement agencies also refused to initiate a criminal case against another official - now the retired governor of the Tambov region Oleg Betin, who, in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda, said that homosexuals "need to tear their pieces in the wind."

In 2013, journalist Dmitry Kiselev made a similar call in 2013, who, right on the air of Russia 1, stated that the hearts of people from the LGBT community should be burned after their death. Later, the journalist called his words "provocation" and did not bear any responsibility.

Igor Kochetkov

Russian LGBT network

- The situation with Artem S. is really noteworthy. In the vast majority of cases, law enforcement agencies in response to complaints of LGBT activists about insults and discrimination are given by formal failure answers. Moreover, even when LGBT representatives report more serious crimes than insult, police react reluctantly.

Such a case last summer occurred in Volgograd, where a guy was beaten for homophobic motives. The police said that they are not obliged to defend “such”. A criminal case was opened only after this case went into a public space. In 90% of cases, the victims do not even contact the police, because they are afraid that law enforcement officers will side with their offenders.

In the situation with Artem, it is also too early to draw conclusions: the police, of course, will conduct a survey of the offending, but they can write off everything on his “private opinion”.