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Gay rights activists march in the Russian city of St Petersburg in 2013 (PHOTO: Olga Maltseva; AFP/Getty Images)

LAWMAKERS in Russia have introduced a draft bill that proposes to add public forms of LGBT expressions to the country’s code of criminal offences.

Introduced by Community Party MPs Ivan Nikitchuk and Nikolay Arefyev, the drafted legislation proposes to add the public expression of “non-traditional sexual relations” into chapter six of Russia’s Code of Administrative Offences.


This would make the “demonstration of one’s distorted sexual preferences in public places” punishable with fines between 4000-5000 rubles (AUD$87-$110) and up to 15 days in jail.

This draft bill comes two years after the controversial law banning “gay propaganda” was ruled constitutional by Russia’s highest court, eventuating in many protests and demonstrations for LGBT rights, as well as the arrest of many activists.

Nikitchuk and Arefyev’s bill would build upon the existing “gay propaganda” law that prohibits the advocacy of “non-traditional relationships” to minors by punishing same-sex attracted people for expressing their sexuality, even without advocating anything.

Nikitchuk told state-owned newspaper Izvestia that the 2013 law which “bans the promotion of homosexuality proved to be insufficiently effective”, and suggested that homosexuality was a danger to humanity citing “failure to reproduce”.

The Communist Party’s proposal did not go without criticism. Russian lawyer Maria Bast told Izvestia that the chance of the legislation’s adoption was zero.

Furthermore, Tanya Cooper, a Russia researcher for Human Rights Watch called the draft law a “new and absurd low in discriminatory legislative proposals” that effectively outlaws being gay.

Russian President Vladamir Putin has contradicted claims that LGBT people are persecuted in Russia.

“The problem of sexual minorities in Russia had been deliberately exaggerated from the outside for political reasons, I believe, without any good basis,” he told CBS’s 60 Minutes.

“We have no persecution at all.”

Follow Matthew Clark on Twitter: @Praptolium