News
Russian court dismisses ‘foreign agent’ fine against LGBT group
St. Petersburg judge had ordered Coming Out director to pay more than $15,000
Polina Andrianova of Russian LGBT rights group Coming Out (Photo courtesy of Polina Andrianova)
A Russian appellate court on Wednesday dismissed a lower court’s ruling that fined the director of a St. Petersburg LGBT advocacy group more than $15,000 under the country’s “foreign agent” law.
Coming Out said on its website the judge in St. Petersburg found the lower court had relied solely on the prosecutor’s charge as opposed to independently establishing whether the organization had violated the 2012 statute that requires groups that receive funding from outside Russia to register as a “foreign agent.” The appellate court also said the deadline to impose the fine against the head of Coming Out had already passed.
Kseniya Kirichenko of Coming Out applauded the ruling in a statement, while acknowledging prosecutors could potentially appeal it.
“We welcome the fact that there are still judges able to impartially and objectively examine a case against such an ‘unpopular’ organization as an LGBT rights organization,” Kirichenko said. “We continue to keep our finger on the pulse, because the prosecution can still protest the judgment.”
The ruling comes against mounting outrage over Russia’s gay crackdown and increased anti-LGBT discrimination and violence in the country
Russian President Vladimir Putin in June signed a broadly-worded law that bans gay propaganda to minors. A second statute that bans same-sex couples and anyone from a country in which gays and lesbians can legally tie the knot from adopting Russian children took effect last month.
Police in May arrested 30 LGBT rights advocates who tried to stage a Pride celebration outside Moscow City Hall. Police in St. Petersburg took dozens of activists into custody in June as they tried to hold their own event in support of LGBT rights.
Authorities in Murmansk last month arrested four Dutch LGBT rights advocates who were in the city filming a documentary about gay life in Russia.
Playwright Harvey Fierstein is among those who have called for the U.S. to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics that will take place in Sochi, Russia, in February over Russia’s gay rights record. Andy Cohen told E! News on Wednesday he declined an invitation to co-host the 2013 Miss Universe pageant that will take place in Moscow in November because “he didn’t feel right as a gay man stepping foot into” the country.
President Obama told Jay Leno during an appearance on “The Tonight Show” last week that he has “no patience” for countries with anti-LGBT laws. The White House, along with retired tennis champion Martina Navratilova and a coalition of LGBT advocacy groups that include Athlete Ally are among those who have said they do not support calls to boycott the Sochi games.
Polina Andrianova of Coming Out told the Washington Blade during an interview on August 9 she feels the “foreign agent” law and the ongoing gay crackdown is an attempt to “shut down any kind of possibility for LGBT advocacy.”
“These laws are aimed at driving LGBT people back into silence, back underground, back to the invisibility,” she said. “That’s the whole point of them.”
Hungary
Hungarian authorities lift Budapest Pride ban
Country’s new government took office last month
Hungarian police on May 29 announced they will allow the annual Budapest Pride march to take place.
“The Budapest Metropolitan Police has approved the 2026 Budapest Pride Parade and also has issued restrictive orders in relation to three counter-demonstrations,” a Budapest Metropolitan Police spokesperson told Politico.
Budapest is Hungary’s capital and largest city.
Hungarian lawmakers last year passed a bill that banned Pride events and allowed authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify participants. MPs later amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
More than 100,000 people defied the ban and participated in last year’s Budapest Pride parade. The event became one of the largest protests against then-Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his government since he took office in 2010.
Prime Minister Péter Magyar took office last month after his center-right Tisza party ousted Orbán’s Fidesz-KDNP coalition in elections that took place on April 12. The European Union’s top court, the EU Court of Justice, days after Orbán’s ouster struck down Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law that MPs approved in 2021.
The EU on May 29 announced it will release more than €16 billion ($18.59 billion) in funds to Hungary that it withheld while Orbán was in office.
The Budapest Pride march will take place on June 27.
“We will march freely in fresh air for our rights, for the democratic Hungary,” said Budapest Pride on its Facebook page.
Colombia
Claudia López comes up short in Colombian presidential election
Former Bogotá mayor would have been country’s first lesbian head of government
Former Bogotá Mayor Claudia López on Sunday finished fifth in the first round of Colombia’s presidential election.
López, a centrist who ran as an independent, received 225,517 votes. This figure is .95 percent of the total votes cast.
López was the Colombian capital’s mayor from 2020-2023. She was a member of the Colombian Senate from 2014-2018. López, whose wife is outgoing Colombian Sen. Angélica Lozano, would have become the country’s first female and first lesbian president if she would have won the election.
The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute honored López in D.C. in 2024.
“We need to listen to each other again, we need to have a coffee with each other again, we need to touch each other’s skin,” she told the Washington Blade during an interview. She hadn’t yet declared her candidacy, and did not specifically discuss her plans to run.
Runoff to take place June 21
Abrelardo de la Espriella, a far-right lawyer who has praised U.S. President Donald Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, on Sunday finished first with 43.74 percent of the vote. Senator Iván Cepeda, a member of outgoing President Gustavo Petro’s Historic Pact party, came in second with 40.9 percent of the vote.
Neither men received a majority of votes. A runoff between them will take place on June 21.
Ghana
Ghanaian lawmakers approve anti-LGBTQ bill
Measure that would criminalize allyship awaits president’s signature
Ghanaian lawmakers on Friday approved a bill that would, among other things, criminalize LGBTQ allyship.
Reuters reported MPs approved the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2025, in a voice vote after parliament’s Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee backed it.
MPs in 2024 approved a similar bill, but it faced legal challenges and then-President Nana Akufo-Addo didn’t sign it. Lawmakers last year reintroduced the measure after President John Dramani Mahama took office.
The bill awaits his signature.
Rightify Ghana, a Ghanaian LGBTQ advocacy group, in a series of social media posts notes MPs passed the bill days before the 4th African Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family Values and Sovereignty will take place in Accra, the country’s capital.
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