Homophobia on the march: in Komsomolsk-on-Amur continue to pursue Julia Tsvetkova

The law enforcement officers continue to pursue the painter and director from Komsomolsk-on-Amur.

On June 9, she was charged with the disseminating of pornography “with a criminal intent”, which threatens the girl with a real term of up to 6 years in prison.

Authorities found drawings made with a blue pen on the colored paper for the project “A Woman is not a doll” the pornography. These drawings depict the cartoony naked women with the slogans “Living women do not have perfect skin. And this is normal”, “Living women have menstruation. And this is normal”, “Living women have body hair. And this is normal”, “Living women have fat. And this is normal”, “Living women may have wrinkles and gray hair. And that’s normal”. And so on.

Meanwhile, the term pornography means "displaying sexual behavior in literature, images, sculptures, films with the aim of causing sexual arousal..."

Writer Natalya Kuznetsova offers:

“Let's reread 47 times - in order to cause sexual arousal.

The female body image is not automatically the pornography and not automatically the sexual behavior.

Because the female body is not created solely to fuck it. Amazing information, isn't it?

And masculine too.

The body is the body.

It has a lot of different functions.

Julia’s drawings were made to free society and women themselves from the stigma and stereotypes about the female body. These stereotypes affect millions of women who do not like themselves and their bodies..."

The persecution of Tsvetkova began at the end of the last year, and at the beginning of this, a petition appeared on the Web demanding that the case be closed.

You can read more about her case, for example, here.

In the meantime, the authorities are not appeasing, a few days ago the another, this time administrative case was opened against Tsvetkova under part 2 of the article 6.21 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (“Propaganda of the non-traditional relations” - Ed.) for a series of pictures with the same-gender families. The flash mob “Yes, I’ll choose” was the response of Facebook to the scandalous video advertising the amendments to the Russian Constitution.

The activist herself commented on the news:

“I have no answers yet. Only questions. I find no other motive on the other side than the revenge. Could this case not reach the court? I doubt it. My predictions are that they will dig, and they will dig out everything they want. So far it works that way. What is this speaking about? That they didn’t drop me behind? That the country is homophobic? That the missile can hit three times in the same place? That all of this is not ok? Why to pronounce the obvious? Perhaps this is all I can say by now..."

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Meanwhile, tomorrow, July 10, there will be a regular court hearing in the Tsvetkova case. The girl wrote about this very emotional and sad post:

“What is a distant region?

Tomorrow I go to court alone.

My defenders in another city, albeit mentally with me.

Support is not allowed into the room due to quarantine.

It’s a little exciting for me to go to court alone for the first time, and fight one on one with the court and the police. But in some ways I feel Furiosa;)

Last time before the hearing there was a picket against me with the participation of Cossacks and homophobes.... Should I expect this tomorrow? I do not know. But I know for sure, that I must not wait for a support group at the court.

Interestingly, earlier I could not imagine that I could go to the court alone. And now it’s not scary anymore. Just not feeling nice because of the lawlessness.

Probably we are always stronger than we think ourselves....

What is the speech about.

Appreciate those nearby. Appreciate lawyers, attorneys, friends, activists, human rights defenders... Those who stand nearby, stand shoulder to shoulder. No one should be left alone - face to face with the system.

And also I want to thank those who support me in other cities. I talk about my loneliness, among other things, for you to understand how much the things you do means to me. It seems to me that my example shows that for the real support it is not always necessary to be near physically. And this is wonderful...."