"First Department": A report was drawn up against a resident of the Saratov region for "demonstrating extremist symbols" - a rainbow flag

The Saratov Region police have drawn up an administrative report under the article on "public demonstration of symbols of an extremist organization" against a local resident who published photos with rainbow flags on Instagram. This was reported by the human rights organization "First Department".

The report, cited by human rights activists, states that the local resident “posted photo and video materials containing the symbols of the ‘International LGBT Public Movement’, which has been recognized as extremist.”

This is the first known administrative case on “demonstration of extremist symbols” initiated due to the publication of a rainbow flag, the First Department noted .

Lawyer Maxim Olenichev, who works with the First Section, said that along with the administrative protocol he was able to obtain a copy of the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, which declared the International LGBT Movement an "extremist organization." Excerpts from the Supreme Court's decision were published by the Saratov publication Svobodnye Novosti.

The Supreme Court's decision states that, according to the Russian Ministry of Justice, the "international LGBT movement" emerged in the United States in the 1960s "as part of a birth control policy," and has been active in Russia since 1984.

“The movement’s participants are united by the presence of certain morals, customs and traditions (for example, gay parades), a similar way of life (in particular, the peculiarities of choosing sexual partners), common interests and needs, a specific language (the use of potential feminitive words such as manager, director, author, psychologist),” says the document, which is quoted by Svobodnye Novosti.

• In November 2023, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation declared the “international LGBT movement” “extremist” and banned it in Russia. The court hearing was held behind closed doors, and the decision was not published. In December, the Ministry of Justice in Stavropol Krai reported that the rainbow flag is a banned symbol of the “international LGBT movement.”