Source: HRO.org (info), 15/03/12

· Krasnodar region  · Sexual minorities

Krasnodar’s Pervomai district court has ruled that the gay movement 'Pride House in Sochi' is extremist, the website Yugopolis reported on Wednesday 14 March.

Previously the Krasnodar region department of the Ministry of Justice refused to register the group ‘Pride House in Sochi’. The founders of the movement Nikolai Alekseev, Kirilll Nepomnyashchy and Aleksandr Naumchik had sought to contest the refusal. The ruling by Pervomai district court upholding the refusal by the Ministry of Justice was issued on 20 February. However as Lenta.ru points out, it is only now that the reasons for the ruling have been published.

The court’s ruling states that the documents for registration submitted by Pride House in Sochi contained errors. The judge also pointed out that the goals of the movement ‘contradict the foundations of public morality and government policy in the area of protection of the family, motherhood and childhood.’ The ruling stressed that the activity of the organization could be assessed as propaganda of a non-traditional sexual orientation that could lead to the incitement of social divisions, and could also ‘undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation as a result of the reduction of its population.’

Gay activists have already expressed their intention to lodge an appeal with Krasnodar region court, and if this is turned down, to take their case to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation and to the European Court of Human Rights.

The organization ‘Pride House in Sochi’, according to activists of the Russian human rights LGBT Project, have made it their goal to combat homophobia in sport during the Winter Olympics in Russia. During the 2014 Olympics members of the movement intend to open in Sochi a Pride House of homosexuals, bi-sexuals and transgender sportsmen and sportswomen in order to provide ‘objective information about the LGBT movement in Russia and the world’ to the public, and also to campaign against homophobia.

The LGBT activists said that the creation of the Pride House was inspired by a similar initiative during the Vancouver Olympics. According to the founders of Pride House in Sochi, the International Olympic Committee has expressed a readiness to work with them.

Documents for the registration of Pride House in Sochi were submitted to the Ministry of Justice on 19 October 2011.