Russia bans popular LGBTI site for violating 'gay propaganda' law

A court order warns of an official blacklisting to Russia’s longest running LGBTI site, Gay.ru. The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) cited a violation of the country’s laws against promoting non-traditional sexual relationships, commonly known as ‘gay propaganda’ laws.

It will add the website to Russia’s centralized internet blacklist – known as the ‘single register’ – effectively shutting it down. It’s a real-time list used for the country-wide censorship of individual URLs, domain names, and IP addresses. Based in Moscow, the LGBTI site started in 1997 and quickly established itself as an important voice for LGBTI people in Russia.

President Vladimir Putin signed the gay propaganda law on 30 June 2013. Since then, Russia has blocked numerous gay-friendly initiatives from entering the country, including Disney movie Beauty and the BeastOverwatch comic, the Warwick Rowers calendar and gay fish, to name a few. Read more via Gay Star News