{"id":32881,"date":"2023-10-12T14:23:07","date_gmt":"2023-10-12T11:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/?p=32881"},"modified":"2023-10-17T14:35:48","modified_gmt":"2023-10-17T11:35:48","slug":"propagating-equality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/articles\/columns\/propagating-equality\/","title":{"rendered":"Propagating Equality"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the most noticeable trends in legislative thought in the summer and fall of this year concerns various prohibitions on propaganda. Russian parliamentarians are passionately discussing what kind of \u201cpropaganda\u201d they should ban: Article 280 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which prohibits \u201cpublic calls for extremist activity,\u201d is now expanded and supplemented<\/a> by a ban on \u201cpublic justification or propaganda of extremism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not everyone understands how to distinguish \u201ccalls\u201d (already prohibited) from propaganda, which, according to the legislator, consists of \u201cforming a conviction about the attractiveness or permissibility\u201d of this very extremism. In other words, it will no longer be necessary to prove that the accused under Article 280 called on someone, say, to pray with Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses; it will be enough that he considered this case permissible. Or maybe he didn\u2019t even think that it was acceptable to behave this way, but he found it somehow attractive.<\/p>\n

Many noted that the ban on \u201cpropaganda of extremism\u201d is identical to a similar ban already in force in Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which prohibits terrorism.<\/p>\n

A ban on promoting the permissibility of violence and violent crimes, however, is not the same as a ban on everything that the authorities do not like (which today includes completely peaceful religious movements, political opponents, self-government bodies of the Crimean Tatar people, and other different entities added to the list of extremists). In many countries, attempts to create an attractive image of racial violence are suppressed (for example, see the recent case<\/a> in Germany). Of course, the fight against the ideology of violence looks especially convincing in cases where it is proven that supporters of this ideology commit real crimes, for the sake of which they try to involve people in their communities. The connection between words and actions is difficult but important to prove; the opinions of linguists alone (and more often than not, forensic experts who are far from even linguistics, whose conclusions form the basis of many convictions in the Russian Federation) are not enough here. We need real facts, a convincing cause-and-effect relationship between the crime (racial violence or even humiliation, which is also a type of crime against the individual) and the activities of the ideologists of such violence.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a completely different matter to \u201cform a conviction about the attractiveness\u201d of the Jehovah\u2019s Witness faith, which does not pose any threat to the life and dignity of a person or a group of people. And here, it seems to me, it is more appropriate to draw an analogy not with the charges under Article 205, but with an also relatively new legislative idea \u2013 the ban on LGBT propaganda and \u201cgender change\u201d on the Internet. The order of Roskomnadzor on the criteria for this propaganda came into force on September 1, 2023 (for some reason, these criteria are valid for 6 years). \u201cThe idea of the social equivalence of traditional and non-traditional sexual relationships, preferences and attitudes,\u201d is now recognised as propaganda<\/a>, as well as the idea that in terms of such preferences \u201cit helps to change a negative attitude [towards LGBT] to a positive one.\u201d In relation to gender reassignment, one cannot form \u201ca positive attitude… including presenting the argument for or justification for the admissibility of this.\u201d Here, obvious discrimination<\/a> based on sexual orientation and gender identity has been elevated to a legislative principle. Moreover, for a hundred years now, the permissibility of \u201csex change\u201d by transgender people, recognized by doctors, turns out to be prohibited, just like \u201csex change\u201d itself (alas, in the summer of 2023, Federal Law No. 386-FZ completely banned the legal registration of a transgender transition, and at the same time abolished all rights of families already created by transpeople).<\/p>\n

The fascination with the prohibition of \u201cjustification of admissibility\u201d and \u201csocial equivalence\u201d in modern Russian law is not limited to the persecution of religious and sexual minorities. In Mordovia, they figured out<\/a> to ban \u201cinformation about the social equivalence of abortion and childbirth\u201d and also did not forget to recognize as a violation of the law \u201cthe formation of an attitude towards abortion as a social norm\u201d (they recognize all this, of course, as \u201cabortion propaganda\u201d). Now in Mordovia, people are punished for \u201cproviding pregnant women with information classified as propaganda,\u201d that is, again, any hint of admissibility [of abortion] entails administrative (for now) responsibility.<\/p>\n

At the same time, abortions themselves are not prohibited \u2013 only their propaganda. Obviously, abortions are acceptable, they are performed in government clinics and even free of charge, but talking about this \u201csocial norm\u201d (especially in the presence of pregnant women, but who knows who is not pregnant?) is strictly forbidden. As for the \u201csocial equivalence of abortion and childbirth,\u201d I would like to simply understand what kind of \u201cinformation\u201d this is. What kind of equal \u2013 or unequal \u2013 social value can these different medical procedures have? Will the legislator\u2019s thought now go further and will it be prohibited to promote the equivalence of the prevention and treatment of caries (or something else)? Although one should not try to invent a rhetorical \u201creduction to the absurd,\u201d it is still impossible to come up with a better idea than that of modern Russian thinkers, who equated the \u201crefusal of childbearing\u201d and vegetarianism (!) with suicide and \u201ccult of death,\u201d an idea found<\/a> in the RANEPA textbook \u201cFundamentals of Russian Statehood\u201d for humanitarian universities.<\/p>\n

It is possible to prohibit \u201cpropaganda of equality\u201d and other positions, as the experience of Iran shows, where they are just passing a law \u201cOn Hijab and Chastity\u201d, toughening the punishment for women who do not want to wear a headscarf. A special punishment \u2013 up to 10 years in prison \u2013 is provided<\/a> for those who \u201cpromoted the rejection of the hijab in collaboration with foreign or hostile governments.\u201d<\/p>\n

The paranoid fear that gender and other \u201cequality\u201d is being imposed by the West and its \u201chostile\u201d supporters dominates dogmatic consciousness everywhere. Thus, recently \u201cAnna Starobinets, who fled Russia\u201d, was attacked by pro-government Russian bloggers<\/a> for a children\u2019s book in which \u201cone of the main characters is a cat who considers himself a badger and is trying to break his instincts.\u201d According to the Z-critic: \u201cIt is difficult not to notice in this the calls for sex change and gender reassignment, as well as the promotion of such behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although it must be admitted, it is not only those who are considered associated with Western countries that are being persecuted. Films by Yakut directors are removed from distribution either for an insufficiently positive image of a Russian policeman, which turns out to be \u201ccontrary to the principles of the unity of the peoples of Russia\u201d (\u201cAita\u201d by Stepan Burnashev), or for LGBTI+ propaganda, expressed allegedly in a man dressing up as a woman (\u201cThe Candidate\u201d by Dmitry Shadrin). As the head of Yakutia, Aisen Nikolaev, said<\/a>, \u201cIf this is the case, the films \u201cGentlemen of Fortune,\u201d \u201cHello, I\u2019m Your Aunt,\u201d and \u201cOnly Girls in Jazz\u201d should be banned tomorrow. Not only did they begin to respect us, not only did they begin to praise us, but some began to fear us. And they began to try to take certain steps to limit the field of activity of Yakut cinema. This includes through such, let\u2019s say, supervisory actions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stefania Kulaeva,
\n<\/em>first published on the Radio Liberty<\/a> blog<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the most noticeable trends in legislative thought in the summer and fall of this year concerns various prohibitions on propaganda. Russian parliamentarians are passionately discussing what kind of \u201cpropaganda\u201d they should ban: Article 280 of the Criminal Code…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":32883,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[362],"tags":[213,173],"strategy_cases":[],"campaign":[],"archive":[],"filter-content":[],"regions":[515],"class_list":["post-32881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","tag-discrimination-en","tag-human-rights-en","regions-russia"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls_v2":{"full":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/word-art1.png",997,501,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/word-art1-125x125.png",125,125,true],"medium":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/word-art1-300x151.png",300,151,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/word-art1-768x386.png",640,322,true],"large":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/word-art1-650x327.png",640,322,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/word-art1.png",997,501,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/word-art1.png",997,501,false],"pub-thumb":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/word-art1-220x111.png",220,111,true],"post-thumb":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/word-art1-170x170.png",170,170,true],"wcicon":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/word-art1.png",48,24,false],"wcsquare":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/word-art1.png",300,151,false],"wcsmall":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/word-art1.png",250,126,false],"wcstandard":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/word-art1.png",550,276,false],"wcbig":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/word-art1.png",800,402,false],"wcfixedheightsmall":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/word-art1.png",358,180,false],"wcfixedheightmedium":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/word-art1.png",597,300,false],"wcfixedheight":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/word-art1.png",995,500,false],"wccarouselsmall":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/word-art1.png",210,106,false],"wccarousel":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/word-art1.png",400,201,false],"wcslider":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/word-art1.png",995,500,false]},"post_excerpt_stackable_v2":"

One of the most noticeable trends in legislative thought in the summer and fall of this year concerns various prohibitions on propaganda. Russian parliamentarians are passionately discussing what kind of \u201cpropaganda\u201d they should ban: Article 280 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which prohibits \u201cpublic calls for extremist activity,\u201d is now expanded and supplemented by a ban on \u201cpublic justification or propaganda of extremism.\u201d Not everyone understands how to distinguish \u201ccalls\u201d (already prohibited) from propaganda, which, according to the legislator, consists of \u201cforming a conviction about the attractiveness or permissibility\u201d of this very extremism. In other words, it…<\/p>\n","category_list_v2":"Columns<\/a>","author_info_v2":{"name":"admin3","url":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/author\/admin3\/"},"comments_num_v2":"0 comments","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32881"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32882,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32881\/revisions\/32882"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32881"},{"taxonomy":"strategy_cases","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/strategy_cases?post=32881"},{"taxonomy":"campaign","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campaign?post=32881"},{"taxonomy":"archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archive?post=32881"},{"taxonomy":"filter-content","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/filter-content?post=32881"},{"taxonomy":"regions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions?post=32881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}