Russian journalist Yury Dud was fined 120,000 rubles by a Moscow court on Tuesday under a law banning “propaganda” in support of LGBTQIA+ relationships.
The Lefortovo district court said the 35-year-old was fined for spreading “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations between minors”.
Former sports reporter Dud, 35, is one of Russia’s top media stars, having risen to prominence through acerbic, politically tinged interviews and documentaries on YouTube, where he has more than 10 million subscribers.
In October last year, Dud was fined 100,000 rubles ($1,308) on “drug propaganda” charges after a pro-Kremlin lobby group asked Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs to investigate him.
On April 15, Dud was assigned a foreign agent by the Russian Ministry of Justice after publicly opposing Russia’s war in Ukraine, which he called an “imperial frenzy”.
Human rights lawyer Pavel Chikov said the case against Dud was based on an interview, done on YouTube in 2021, where the journalist spoke with a gay artist — although Chikov said the interview was not about sexual orientation.
Since 2013, Russia has criminalized the “propaganda” of non-traditional sexual orientations to children as part of the Kremlin’s broader conservative agenda.
Last week, Parliament Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin called for a complete ban on the promotion of “non-traditional values” in Russia.
Source: CNN Brasil
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