A court in St. Petersburg fined the coordinator of the Alliance of Heterosexuals and LGBT for a link to Meduza on VKontakte

The Smolensky District Court of St. Petersburg fined Alexey Nazarov five thousand rubles due to a link to the Meduza article on his VKontakte page. This was reported by the press service of the city courts.

We are talking about a “collective appeal by activists from Russia and Belarus”, released on March 8, 2023. It talked about the systemic problems women face in Russia and ways to solve them.

Probably, we are talking about the media coordinator of the “Alliance of Heterosexuals and LGBT for Equality” Alexey Nazarov. His page on VKontakte is now closed, he confirmed to Mediazona that he actually posted the Meduza article on his page.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Nazarov left with his partner for France, where they received refugee status. He learned about the fine from a Mediazona correspondent.

In March 2023, the Ministry of Justice included the alliance in the register of “foreign agents” and justified this with “propaganda of LGBT relations, which contradicts state policy to preserve and strengthen traditional Russian spiritual and moral values.” Because of a post in the telegram channel of the alliance without a sign, Nazarov was fined 10 thousand rubles in absentia in November 2023 (Article 19.34 of the Administrative Code).

The “Alliance of Heterosexuals and LGBT for Equality” appeared in 2012 in response to the law banning “LGBT propaganda”, which was then passed in St. Petersburg (a year later, a similar ban was approved by the State Duma). “We carry out unifying activities, form projects to support LGBTQ activists, take part in legal and psychological support programs, and conduct media projects,” the alliance members describe their work.

In 2021, VKontakte blocked the alliance’s public page, citing a 2019 court decision in Chelyabinsk, about which none of the administrators were notified. The Chelyabinsk Regional Court canceled the blocking due to violations committed by the prosecutor's office.