Gay rights caught up in EU-Russia geopolitics

“The idea is that being gay isn’t patriotic. If you’re gay, then you’re a foreign agent, a Western agent, and you’re here to spread Western values,” Pavel Loparev, a Russian film-maker, told EUobserver.

Nvard Margaryan, an Armenian gay rights activist, noted: “They [pro-Russia NGOs] say people will take children from ‘normal’ families and give them to gay families … They say Europe doesn’t care about people’s rights, only gay rights. They call it ‘gayeuropa’.”

Protection of sexual minorities used to be a human rights issue.

But Russia, in its propaganda war against the EU and the US, has made it geopolitical.

Recent events in the EU and the Eurasian Union, Russia’s new bloc, highlight the clash of values.

In Luxembourg on 15 May, Xavier Bettel i, the PM, married his gay partner - a first for an EU head of government. In Ireland, a week later, people enshrined gay marriage in the constitution by referendum - another first.

But in Moscow on 17 May, the international anti-homophobia day, police arrested rights activists at a small rally. In Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, which is to shortly join the Eurasian Union, thugs beat up activists, who were taken away by police, who beat them up again.

The trend is visible, in green (equality) and red (rights violations), on a map published each year by Ilga-Europe, a Brussels-based NGO.

Most EU countries, but not the former Iron Curtain ones, are becoming greener. Most former Soviet states, including pro-EU ones, such as Ukraine, are becoming redder.

It’s a trend which is enforced by law.

Russia, in 2012, passed legislation saying NGOs which receive EU or US money, a category that includes most NGOs which promote gay rights, are “foreign agents”. In 2013, it forbid “propaganda” of homosexual relationships. In May, it said “undesirable” NGOs can be shut down.

Kyrgyzstan is passing Russia-model “foreign agents” and homosexual propaganda laws.

In Armenia, which is already part of the Eurasian Union, the Russian ambassador has recommended a “foreign agents” bill. A homosexual propaganda law, tabled in 2013, is, activists say, “still on the agenda”.

“We’re afraid the same anti-liberal legislation will be exported here”, Margaryan, who works for Pink Armenia, a Norway and UK-funded NGO, told this website.

None of the former Soviet countries are slated to join the EU.

But with protection of minorities forming, in the European Commission’s words, “an integral part of … the Copenhagen political criteria for accession”, anti-liberal laws help lock them into the Eurasian orbit.

Hate factory

Conservative mores in Catholic and Orthodox societies aren’t new.

But Russia’s project, to turn them into anti-Western feeling, is a recent development.

Loparev, the film-maker, whose last work documents gay teenagers’ life in Russia, said “something changed” in 2013, the time of the anti-propaganda law and the run-up to the geopolitical confrontation in Ukraine.

He noted that state TV, fronted by celebrity homophobes such as Dmitry Kiselyev and Arkady Mamontov, began depicting gay people as a fifth column and blaming them for economic problems.

Ivan Okhlobystin, another pro-Kremlin TV star, in December 2013 said gay people should be burned in “ovens”.

He was fired from his PR post at a mobile phone firm. But a fashion company, Baon, snapped him up. It later said “he’s … consistent with our target audience, our brand values: attachment to family life; Orthodox Christianity”.

Loparev said: “The [anti-propaganda] law is just part of the anti-Western campaign, of the geopolitical game Russia is playing … They’re saying: ‘We’re against the West and all it stands for. We don’t share Western values. We have our own’.”

He noted that the Kremlin campaign generated momentum in society.

“It gave the green light to bullies … people are afraid of being attacked”.

He said gay-friendly Moscow nightclubs are being vandalised with slogans such as “fags party here”. He also said local NGOs report pro-gay blogs or tweets to prosecutors: “The sad thing is, they don’t all work for the government. They think they’re doing the right thing”.

For its part, Armenia was to sign an EU association treaty in 2013.

Its president caused shock when he suddenly changed his mind amid Russian security threats over its frozen conflict with Azerbaijan.

But shortly before the U-turn, a Russian-linked NGO, the Pan-Armenian Parents’ Committee, began a noisy campaign linking gay rights to pro-EU reforms.

It revolved around a bill on gender equality, which said gender is “acquired, socially fixed behaviour”.

Pink Armenia’s Margaryan said “suddenly, they were everywhere - in street protests, on TV - trying to make the word ‘gender’ into a dirty word. They said it’s nothing to do with equality between men and women, but that it’s about promotion of paedophilia and homosexuality”.

Margaryan noted that state-controlled Armenian media were always homophobic.

But the country’s pro-Russian swerve aggravated the situation: One newspaper, Iravunk, last year published a blacklist of 60 gay rights activists, including their personal details, whom it dubbed “enemies of the state”.

It was taken to court but it got off the hook, in part, because Armenia has no anti-hate crime law.

It’s the same reason why the Black Ravens, an ultra-nationalist group which burned down Yerevan’s only gay bar in 2012, got off lightly.

EU leverage

It’s also the reason why campaigners want the EU to use what leverage it has.

The EU-Armenia association treaty called for hate crime legislation. That’s defunct. But EU conditions for Armenia visa-free travel also call for hate crime laws.

Bjoern van Roozendaal, Ilga-Europe’s director, praised EU institutions for making gay rights a bigger part of their diplomacy in recent years.

“Much more work is needed”, he told EUobserver. “But LGBTI issues are increasingly becoming part of high-level political discussions … both the EU and the US have these issues high on their international agenda”.

Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for the EU foreign service, noted: “It’s … no secret that LGBTI rights have come to be perceived as a symbol of Western and European values and used as a rhetorical channel by those offering an alternative cultural paradigm”.

She added: “Faced with this situation, the EU will continue to … support the LGBTI movement”.

That’s the official line.

But speaking off the record, some EU diplomats say it is strategically unwise for the EU to give gay rights a prominent place in its communications in the eastern neighbourhood.

“Don’t even go there. It’s better for the time being to focus on issues like democracy and basic human rights. In a place like Armenia, gender equality and LGBTI rights are better left for five, or 10 years down the line”, one EU source said.

The strategic shift is being noted on the ground.

Margaryan said the EU delegation in Yerevan is keeping quiet on details of the visa-free package: it holds perfunctory press conferences; its documents aren’t even translated into Armenian.

She said national embassies, including Germany and the US, are also becoming shy.

“If they support any our campaigns, we’re asked to agree that their support shouldn’t be publicised”, she added.

“It feels like these days everyone is more afraid to publicly support LGBTI issues because LGBTI is considered a Western value and they don’t want to go together with this association”.

The EU strategy is also evident in Russia.

Loparev, who isn’t a professional activist, but who is gay and who does follow independent online media, noted: “EU activism is non-existent. You don’t see it or hear it”.

“I haven’t seen any sign of any EU politician or other actor speaking about these issues in recent times in Moscow. People are being detained and I don’t see any action by Western diplomats”.

Ceding ground?

The EU foreign service’s Kocijancic gave as examples of high-level EU intervention its demarches on homophobic laws in India, Nigeria, and Uganda.

But she indicated that it’s trying to use a softer touch in the former Soviet region.

“LGBTI issues are dealt with in a broader context of anti-discrimination, as this can make it easier to approach the subject when dealing with more 'sensitive' partners”, she said.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, the US scholar and former diplomat, in his 1997 book described geopolitics as “the grand chessboard”.

It’s an analogy which poses the question: Is the EU winning the game by sacrificing gay rights for a greater purpose, or is it ceding ground, on values, to the Russian discourse?

For Ilga-Europe, one answer is for the EU to help local activists do the work.

“The need to strengthen local movements - which are uniquely placed to bring up LGBTI issues within their own local and cultural context - continues to grow,” Van Roozendaal said.

“Focus needs to be put on making sure that movements in countries are strengthened so that inequality can be addressed from within”.

With EU in central and eastern Europe also getting redder on Ilga-Europe’s map, he added: “Remarkably, neither the EU nor the US have envoys who promote LGBTI rights within their own legislature, creating incoherence between domestic and foreign policy”.