THE ‘GAY PROPAGANDA’ DEBATE COMES TO ARMENIA, KIND OF
Transitions Online, Czech Rep.
Aug 15 2013
An abortive ban on some information and speech is part of an intensely
anti-gay environment. From Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso.
by Onnik Krikorian15 August 2013
Proposals to introduce legislation to ban the promotion of
“nontraditional sexual relations” in Armenia have concerned human
rights activists in the small former Soviet republic. The bill,
posted on the website of the Armenian police, came a little over a
month after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into force similar
legislation to prohibit “propaganda” that might cause the “distorted
understanding” that gay and heterosexual relations are “socially
equivalent.” Fines of up to $4,000 for “propagating nontraditional
sexual relationships” in order to protect the “traditional Armenian
family” against “phenomena alien to national identity” were included.
“We live in Russia’s shadow,” Mamikon Hovsepian, head of the PINK
Armenia organization was quoted by media as saying.
The ‘Gay Propaganda’ Debate Comes to Armenia, Kind of
An abortive ban on some information and speech is part of an intensely
anti-gay environment. From Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso.
by Onnik Krikorian15 August 2013
Proposals to introduce legislation to ban the promotion of
“nontraditional sexual relations” in Armenia have concerned human
rights activists in the small former Soviet republic. The bill,
posted on the website of the Armenian police, came a little over a
month after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into force similar
legislation to prohibit “propaganda” that might cause the “distorted
understanding” that gay and heterosexual relations are “socially
equivalent.” Fines of up to $4,000 for “propagating nontraditional
sexual relationships” in order to protect the “traditional Armenian
family” against “phenomena alien to national identity” were included.
“We live in Russia’s shadow,” Mamikon Hovsepian, head of the PINK
Armenia organization was quoted by media as saying.
A marcher at a gay pride parade in Marseille, France, holds up a
sign that reads, in Armenian, Love Does Not Have A Sex. Photo by MMK
2010/Wikimedia Commons.
A few days later, Radio Free Europe reported that the bill was
withdrawn by the police due to undisclosed “shortcomings” and because
such issues are “not a priority” for them at present.
Others, such as prolific Armenian LGBT blogger Mika Artyan, were
not convinced. “I didn’t even manage to write a post on the already
withdrawn gay propaganda bill, but will do so post factum as this is
not the end of story,” he tweeted. He also told Osservatorio Balcani
e Caucaso that he believes only international media coverage of the
proposed legislation, as well as domestic ridicule, prevented it from
being taken further.
ALARMING LEVEL OF HOMOPHOBIA
Of concern to Artyan and other gay-rights activists in Armenia is
the alarming level of homophobia in the country and the wider region.
According to a 2011 household survey by the Caucasus Research Resource
Centers, as quoted by local media, 96 percent of Armenian respondents
said they did not approve of homosexuality. In neighboring Azerbaijan
and Georgia that figure was 84 and 87 percent respectively. But given
events in Tbilisi, Georgia, on 17 May when thousands of Orthodox
believers disrupted an event to mark the International Day Against
Homophobia and Transphobia, that will hardly come as any comfort.
Taken as a whole, the South Caucasus remains highly intolerant and
inherently homophobic.
But at least Georgian LGBT activists did attempt to hold such an event
in downtown Tbilisi. In Armenia, on the same day, a small group of
activists from PINK Armenia gathered in a park on the periphery of
the city center to release rainbow-colored balloons into the air.
Photographs were posted on their Facebook page only after the short
flash mob was over, and likely for good reason. A year earlier,
although marking the 21 May International Day for Cultural Diversity
for Dialogue and Development, nationalists disrupted an event staged
by PINK Armenia and the Women’s Resource Center in downtown Yerevan.
ENDORSING ANTI-GAY VIOLENCE: THE D.I.Y. ISSUE
Police intervened, but did not prevent the counter-protesters, who
alleged the march was a cover for gay rights, from later heading for
a gay-friendly bar fire-bombed weeks earlier to wreck what little of
the premises remained. D.I.Y., a small basement bar, had been a relaxed
hangout for heterosexual and homosexual citizens and foreigners alike,
but its owner, punk rocker Tsomak Oganesova, had irked nationalists
in Armenia after attending a gay pride rally in Istanbul, Turkey. The
fire-bombers, caught in the act on closed-circuit television, were
bailed out by members of parliament from the nationalist Armenian
Revolutionary Federation. The government also appeared to support
the crime.
“As an Armenian citizen and member of a national-conservative
party, I find the rebellion of the two young Armenian people against
homosexuals, who have created a den of perversion in our country and
have a goal of alienating society from its moral values, completely
right and justified,” ruling Republican Party Spokesman and Vice
President of the Armenian National Assembly Eduard Sharmazanov
told journalists. Despite endangering the lives of residents of the
apartment building above the bar, the fire-bombers received suspended
sentences in July this year. “Now you know it’s OK to attack gays
and gay-friendly venues in Armenia,” Artyan wrote on his blog.
Alarmingly, none of this is likely to concern most citizens. In 2011,
Pink Armenia held its own poll and discovered that 71.5 percent of
respondents in Armenia supported the idea of the government actively
campaigning against homosexuality. In the same survey, 78.1 and
71.8 percent of respondents also said they would cease communicating
with friends and relatives if they discovered they were gay. Nearly
90 percent said they wouldn’t even use the same crockery if they
suspected it had been used by a gay person beforehand. Education
and raising awareness might be key to changing perceptions, but even
there the environment is hostile.
NO PARADA IN ARMENIA
In October last year, plans by the German Embassy to screen Parada,
a film about gay rights by Serbian film director Srdjan Dragojevic,
were cancelled following protests. Those behind the demonstration had
also organized the disruption of last year’s diversity march as well as
International Women’s Day events in previous years. This time, another
target was Ruben Babayan, artistic director of the Puppet Theater,
a venue for the film screening. “This is a feature film, which has
been shown at many festivals,” Babayan told the media in response.
“By the same logic, I think you can ban the showing of films by
Sergei Parajanov [an ethnic Armenian cultural icon who was convicted
of homosexuality in the Soviet era],” he continued. “One should […]
decide – either we turn this country into Iran and feel happy about
that, or we just come to the realization that there are things like
tolerance, feature films, and the arts.”
Although the constitution provides for the protection of sexual
minorities, with homosexuality decriminalized in 2003 and the
government having signed a still-pending UN resolution on gay
rights five years later, there is no legislation that specifically
prohibits hate speech or protects members of the LGBT community from
discrimination. Indeed, argue activists such as Artyan, playing on
the phobias of the population can be convenient for the government in
distracting attention from other problems. The proposed legislation
came in the wake of successful public protests to prevent a rise in
bus fares.
“Armenia decriminalized gay male sex only because of that requirement
by the Council of Europe,” he told Osservatorio, “but it was the last
South Caucasus state to do so even if the first to sign some other
groundbreaking documents in support of LGBT rights. The potential is
there, […] but change will depend on the development of democracy
and human rights in general.”
Onnik Krikorian is a journalist and photographer in the South Caucasus
and former Caucasus editor for Global Voices Online. This article
originally appeared on Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso.
http://www.tol.org/client/article/23904-the-gay-propaganda-debate-comes-to-armenia-kind-of.html