Russian television presenter sacked after coming out as gay on live television (and the footage was deleted from internet)

Anton Krasovsky, 37, made the announcement on the KontrTV network



'I’m gay, and I’m just the same person as you,' Mr Krasovsky said

The footage of his announcement has been deleted from the internet



Announcement: Anton Krasovsky, 37, was sacked from his job for admitting he was gay on live television

A Russian television presenter was sacked after coming out on live television.

Anton Krasovsky, 37, made the announcement on the KontrTV network, a Kremlin-backed Internet and cable television network he helped to launch.



'I’m gay, and I’m just the same person as you, my dear audience, as President Putin, as Prime Minister Medvedev and the deputies of our Duma,' Mr Krasovsky said.

He told CNN in a recent interview that he was sacked the same night that he made the announcement at the end of the Friday night show.



It appeared that videos of his announcement in earlier this year were deleted from the Kontr TV website and YouTube.

He told the interviewer he was not sure who was behind the decision to delete the footage.



Mr Krasovsky, who was an editor-in-chief at the channel later told The Independent: 'I have made a lot of money in television and I understood that I’d lose everything,' he recalls over coffee, months later. He is currently unemployed. 'But I also understood that I couldn’t do anything else. I didn’t do it so that I would get hundreds of likes on my Facebook page. I did it because I wanted them to hear it in the Kremlin. And they heard it, and were surprised.'

The issue of homosexuality in Russia is under intense scrutiny at the moment - yesterday FIFA has asked authorities in 2018 World Cup host Russia for 'clarification and more details' about a new anti-gay law, joining the International Olympic Committee in seeking answers from Moscow.



Legislation prohibiting 'propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations among minors' has provoked an international furor since President Vladimir Putin signed it off in June and sparked growing concern at the IOC ahead of the Sochi Winter Games next February.



Decision: He made the announcement on the KontrTV network, a Kremlin-backed Internet and cable television network he helped to launch

Sacked: He told CNN in a recent interview that he was sacked the same night that he made the announcement at the end of the Friday night show

Russian lawmakers say the law doesn't outlaw homosexuality but merely discourages discussion of it among people younger than 18.



'I'm gay, and I'm just the same person as you, my dear audience, as President Putin,' Mr Krasovsky said

However, the law has outraged Russian liberals and some sectors of the international community just six months before the start of the Winter Olympic Games in the Russian city of Sochi.



The law does not outlaw gay sex, which was legalized in Russia in 1993.

It does not explicitly ban participation in gay pride parades or promotion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality online, but anyone wearing a rainbow flag on the street or writing about gay relationships on Facebook, for instance, could be accused of propagandizing.

No one has yet gone to court under the federal law. Six LGBT activists were detained after one of them unfurled a banner reading 'Being gay is normal' near a children's library in Moscow, but so far the participants have not been brought to trial.



Four Dutch citizens working on a documentary film about gay rights in the northern Russian town of Murmansk were the first foreigners to be detained under the new law.



They were fined and forced to leave the country, but weren't put on trial.



There have been six cases in which individuals have been tried for 'propaganda' under regional legislation.



While the legislation outraged Russian liberals and activists, a poll by the independent Levada Center in Russia found that 73 percent of respondents supported any government efforts to curb homosexual propaganda.



Four out of five Russians say that they do not have a single LGBT acquaintance.

