The Future of LGBT in Russia: Iranian Death Penalties or Cuban Freedom?

People are worried about where we are going, whose experience we will adopt: Western liberal or Eastern radical.

Victoria Pavlova

Not a single deputy, being in his right mind, today will offer to pay attention to the experience of European countries, the USA and other unfriendly states. Unless he wants to put an end to his career. Friendly countries are a completely different matter. Take Iran, for example. With this state, we are getting closer and closer every day, it seems that soon we will not only be friendly, but also fraternal to call this country together with its population. After all, we are sailing in the same sanctions boat...

Mortal danger for "not such"

Iran has become the most intolerant of LGBT people in the world. There are only four countries left on the globe, including Iran, that provide for the death penalty for homosexuality and other "non-traditional" relationships.

In Iran, the death penalty is not just words in the law. In the Islamic Republic, this article is applied in practice. The last death sentence was handed down in September 2022 to two LGBT activists for "spreading debauchery on Earth." A similar punishment began to be practiced in Iran after the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

In general, Iran has a highly developed legislation based on Sharia norms, which suppresses homosexual relations. To receive the death penalty, the defendant must confess to the crime four times or face a penalty of lashes. How confessions are obtained is not officially known. The whip and the gallows are the main punishment tools in Iran, but local courts can use them in a variety of combinations.

After getting acquainted with such sophisticated punishments, our native domestic deputies with their bans on films and books may seem like God's dandelions.

However, the number of countries in the world where homosexual relations are a crime is declining. Now there are 66 such states in the world. All of them are in Africa and Asia. Back in 2018, according to the UN, homosexual relations were criminalized in 70 countries, and the death penalty was provided for in 7 countries instead of 4 in 2022. Even in strict Saudi Arabia, the punishment for sodomy and the death penalty was reduced to 10 years in prison. But Iran continues to adhere to the most rigid position.

The policy of tightening the screws and tightening enforcement of Sharia norms in 2022 has already led to mass protests in defense of women's rights (the reason was the murder of a woman who incorrectly wore the hijab), in which up to 450 protesters and 60 law enforcement officers died.

Liberty Island

At the other extreme is Cuba. What unites the island of freedom with Iran is perhaps friendship with Russia. Cuba, too, is still kind of friendly to us. Recently, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, together with Vladimir Putin, unveiled a monument to Fidel Castro in Moscow. After this, adopting the Caribbean experience is not scary. But there is a nuance.

For a long time, Cuba also remained a conservative country. According to the Family Code, which has been in force since 1975, LGBT people not only did not have equal rights with heterosexuals, but they were also sent to military labor camps for re-education. However, on September 6, 2022, a referendum was held in Cuba, in which 67% of the inhabitants of the island voted in favor of the adoption of a new Family Code. The new law was adopted peacefully, calmly.

Uncertain Russia

Russia, on the other hand, is somewhere in the middle: non-traditional relationships in and of themselves, if it is not pedophilia, are not a crime, but LGBT representatives do not even have all the usual rights and freedoms. Russia is consistently at the very bottom of the rating of European countries for the protection of LGBT rights, compiled by the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA). We are in 46th place out of 49 possible. After us only Turkey and Azerbaijan. Most of all in Europe, LGBT people are granted rights in Malta.

The scope of civil rights granted to LGBT people in Russia and Malta is fundamentally different.

Russian legislators will certainly not stop there, just as they did not stop at the ban on LGBT propaganda for minors. This theme works great and distracts people from pressing issues. In November 2022, in the Yandex search engine, the query “LGBT” was 5.5 times more popular than “food prices” and almost equaled the number of the query “sanctions”. In addition, the propaganda has borne fruit: the people in their mass support the rejection of same-sex relationships. According to polls by the Levada Center *, 69% of Russians believe that adults do not have the right to voluntary same-sex relationships. Showing tolerance in some circles is simply indecent and unsafe. It comes to the point that even the head of the Jewish Autonomous Region, Rostislav Goldstein, is forced to make official statements and justify himself for the rainbow flag of the region. “ If you open the primary sources, you will see. When the Lord appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai, he asked how my people would know that you are constantly with us? And he says: "I will appear to you in the form of a rainbow." Therefore, the flag of the Jewish Autonomous Region is still a biblical symbol,” Goldstein said. The editors of "NI" hope that at least for insulting the feelings of believers with such quotes, the governor of the JAO will not be involved.

*Recognized as a foreign agent