The ECHR awarded an activist more than 16 thousand euros in compensation after an attack on him at an LGBTQ rally

The European Court of Human Rights awarded compensation for moral damage in the amount of 16.3 thousand euros to activist from St. Petersburg Vasily Ivanov. OVD-Info was told about this by the Sfera charitable foundation.

The ECHR found that Russian courts wrongfully ignored the attack on Ivanov during an agreed rally.

On June 12, 2012, Ivanov took part in the action and walked in a column with a banner of the “Alliance of Heterosexuals and LGBT for Equality.” After a march on the protesters shouting “For Sparta!” masked skinheads attacked.

The activist was recorded as being beaten, but in 2013 the St. Petersburg Magistrate Court did not see any manifestations of hatred in the actions of the attacker Dmitry Deineko and regarded them as hooliganism. In 2014, the Dzerzhinsky District Court considered the incident a “rebuff to propaganda”: ​​this is how the attacker himself explained his actions.

Ivanov’s case was handled by lawyer Maria Kozlovskaya, who collaborates with Sfera. She noted that now Russia is unlikely to implement the ECHR decision. However, Kozlovskaya pointed out that it is still necessary to defend one’s rights at the international level: decisions will be important in the future, “when the criminal regime changes to a democratic one and positive changes become possible for everyone, including LGBT people.”

• The Sfera Charitable Foundation is a human rights organization that runs programs to protect the interests of the Russian LGBTQ community and supports small initiatives aimed at systemic change regarding LGBTQ rights in Russia.
• In 2022, Vladimir Putin signed a law allowing the Russian government not to implement ECHR decisions taken after March 15, 2022, the day the Russian Federation left the Council of Europe. Despite this, the ECHR continues to consider complaints from Russian citizens if violations of the European Convention occurred before September 16, 2022.