NewsA Saint Petersburg court announced a case Tuesday against the bookstore Подписные издания (Subscription Editions) on charges of “LGBTQA+ propaganda.” No information is available yet regarding the reasons for the charges.
On its website, the bookstore shares that it has been open since 1926, with photos that capture the involvement of the store with the people of the cultural capital of Russia. Besides selling books, the bookstore has two cafes and a stationery line, hosts events, manages a children’s literature club, produces lists of children’s books and a literary journal, and publishes novels.
The bookstore was already fined 800,000 rubles (approximately $10,000) in May under “LGBTQA+ propaganda” charges for selling books authored by Susan Sontag and Russian journalists Valery Panyushkin and Sergey Parkhomenko, who are designated as “foreign agents,” among others. The court also demanded the removal of the aforementioned literature.
The charge of “LGBTQA+ propaganda” against the bookstore is the latest issue in the journal of human rights violations under Putin’s regime. After labeling the LGBTQA+ movement as “extremist” in 2023, the government dedicated a huge amount of resources to punishing anything that resembled it. Companies like Apple have been fined several times for failing to remove undesired content. Bookstores and publishers have been targets of searches, detention, and fines. LGBTQA+ activists have been fined for social media promotions, with at least one sentence being issued for “LGBTQA+ propaganda.” Fines are also given out for messages in Telegram chats, with some people even being detained for posts in Russian social media VKontakte.
On Wednesday, a woman in illegally annexed Crimea was fined 100,000 rubles (approximately $1300) under “LGBTQA+ propaganda” charges for a meme showing men in wedding dresses. The meme depicted men who say “let’s split the bill,” “I waited for you to make a first move,” “why should I be the one to invite [a girl] on a first date?,” and “prove to me that you need me” as men in wedding dresses, establishing a connection between the phrases and self emasculation.
