St. Petersburg organisation of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders “Coming Out” has filed an appeal to the General Prosecutor’s office of Russian Federation, in which it asks to initiate a criminal case against vice-speaker of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, “United Russia” deputy Sergei Andenko in connection to his slanderous statements expressing discriminatory attitude towards the social group of gays and lesbians.

In the applicants opinion while commenting St. Petersburg Ombudsman Aleksei Kozyrev’s statement on the impossibility of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in regards to the issue of granting permissions for public actions of February 8, 2010 on ZakS.ru website Sergei Andenko expressed himself in a way that was humiliating human dignity of homosexual people and that provoked hatred against them.

From April 5 to 11, 2010 ANO “Coming Out” will hold a series of educational events in St. Petersburg within the Russia wide “Week Against Homophobia”. The Week is organised by the Interregional Social Movement “Russian LGBT Network” for the forth year in a row. One of the goals of the Week is to draw attention to the problem of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Translated by Olga Lenkova